


A Tale of Two Slaves

by TundrainAfrica



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Dreams, F/M, Hange does not remember anything, Levi remembers Hange, Modern Era, Reincarnation, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 56,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27710042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TundrainAfrica/pseuds/TundrainAfrica
Summary: "Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn't exist. Everything is a choice. At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him."Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn't.
Relationships: Levi & Erwin Smith, Levi/Hange Zoë
Comments: 112
Kudos: 287
Collections: Multichapter Fics (Tundrainafrica)





	1. Chapter 1

In dreams people only see faces they already know.

It was an interesting fact Levi had probably come across, lazily scrolling through his social media timelines or opening countless tabs after getting into some Wikipedia blackhole in between the long days of schools and the short nights asleep. 

He spent a fair amount of time on the internet, reading up about whatever bullshit politics came up with, controversies and bathroom reader fun facts. During his first year of college, it had stuck to him for a time. Maybe because it just seemed too unrealistic, too unbelievable.

After all, ever since he had started college, he felt like he had been dreaming of more and more unfamiliar faces. It could have been attributed at least to the fact that he was exposed to more people in a crowded city than he had been in the small town he grew up in. As time went by, these faces he barely recognized though, had become the main actors in his dream. 

The long haired boy with the elvish features. The man with the clean cut appearance and a glint of mischief in his eyes. The oriental girl with subtle European features. The cheeky girl with a beat up pair of glasses and unkempt hair. 

They and many others had been regulars in his dreams and Levi had come up with names for them already, names he remembered muttering, names he screamed multiple times in his head. By the time he woke up to the four walls of his bedroom a few hours before his first class, they were vague memories, only as intelligible as his view of the world right after waking up. 

Some mornings, he had found himself more exhausted than when he had slept. Some mornings, he found his throat sore from screaming. Some days, his eyes were swollen from crying. 

He lived alone in a dormitory and he had wanted to infer that it had been homesickness that had made those nightmares possible. He had never really abhorred being alone though, in fact he liked the privacy that came with having his own room. 

He quickly shot down that theory and did not think too much about it soon after. His daily life did not give him too much time to ponder such fleeting and abstract of a concept as dreams in between lessons and training. 

The dreams never left him, some days they were more vivid than others. After a few years of navigating academics, trainings, and obligations, Levi had gotten used to brushing off that one tear he’d get as he woke up, taking a lozenge to soothe the sore throat or just leaving the lights off in his room to alleviate the pounding headache he would get some mornings. 

Daily life and obligations never did allow him the time and space to ponder too much on those dreams. Levi chalked it up to stress and unexplained trauma, easily soothed by ten minutes scrolling through social media or hours reorganizing his room for the third time that week.

Financial and time constraints made it impossible as well to even consider consulting about it and Levi found himself compartmentalizing those dreams into those few hours of sleep he got at night and the one hour he allowed himself each day to adjust to the waking world. 

The line blurred one night though when one of those names was nonchalantly mentioned among others.

"Hange Zoe..."

It was just one name in a list recited by their coach before they were all dismissed for the evening. Sandwiched between a few other names before and after it, it wasn't supposed to stand out like that. Oddly, it did. 

As Levi rode his bike to his dormitory room after a tiring day of training, he found himself repeating that name again and again. He tried to make sense of the odd familiarity which came with a name he could have sworn he had never heard before. 

_A family friend? A childhood friend?_

Levi entertained those possibilities. Having grown up in a small town, his family friends and childhood friends consisted of everyone in that tight knit community and he could have listed out all their names then and there. She wasn’t part of it. 

To at least, satisfy his own curiosity, Levi had sent a message to his parents before going to sleep. Just in case he had met her before. 

Levi woke up the next morning, his throat a little scratchier, his body a little more tired. The first thing he did was check his phone.

_Hange Zoe wasn’t a family friend._

Levi put the covers over himself and closed his eyes. His head was pounding and his chest was heavy. He had only noticed a moment later that his eyes were wet, his breaths were coming out in heaves. 

_What did I dream about this time?_

Levi needed the whole morning to recover.

* * *

Levi managed at least to drag himself out of bed for afternoon training. By then, others have already started warming up. Levi wondered if he would be able to carry his body through a warm up jog, given his state only a few hours ago. 

In the end, getting the jog done became a matter of discipline more than anything else and he had finished well above everyone else. 

He had always been faster, given his smaller build and he had the natural muscle and athletic skill to be versatile as well. That was what made him stand out as the best athlete in the track and field team. He never cared too much either way about the admiration many of his teammates held towards him.

The recurring nightmares and the aftermaths of these though had left Levi averse to human interaction. Ironically, as he moved away from his small town and into the bigger city, his world had gotten smaller. Levi found himself keeping his world only wide enough to win track and field events and pass classes. 

No man could really ever be an island though, no matter how much they try. Levi soon found that out when he saw that aforementioned Hange Zoe on the side of the track, talking to one of their coaches. 

“This is Hange Zoe.” 

“You can call me Hange.” 

Levi did not need that quick introduction his coach had just given him. Somehow, the name and the face just clicked inside him. He looked expectantly at his coach and back at Hange. 

Hange held out her hand to him and smiled. “I heard you’re the best one in the team. Coach Greg spoke highly of you.” 

Levi narrowed his eyes at her. “What's she doing here?” 

“Didn’t I tell you last time? Some of the premed students wanted to do case studies on athletes here for their final thesis. If you could help them out?” The coach turned to Hange. “Levi here is one of our best jumpers. He holds a pretty good record for sprinting, hurdles and throwing events as well.”

“Your jogging form looks amazing! I’d love to see you in action.” 

Levi was not prepared for the invasion of privacy that came a second after. Hange held both of his hands towards her and leaned closer towards him. Before Levi could even stop himself, he had pushed her away and ran, the screaming of his coach to come back had become mere muffled screams in the background. 

The only reason Levi did drag himself to training was for the fact that it was still one of the few hobbies he found complete calm yet complete liberation in. Those few moments after launching himself up in the air, those magical few moments high up in the air with only the empty sky above him, Levi felt free. 

As Levi powered through, he found within him a burst of energy, built up from an idle morning cooped up in his room. 

He had done those same drills so many times before. The excitement he got from flying through the air and running easily took over whatever exhaustion and rattledness plagued him only a second ago. He let his body memory guide him through each drill, concentrating his consciousness on other things like the cool wind on his skin as he shot through the track and the purple sky that stretched above as he performed high jumps. 

If Levi had been any more aware of his surroundings, he would have noticed his teammates leaving the track one by one. Maybe, he would have noticed as he started moving to the hurdles that the purple sky was slowly turning into a dark blue and the scenery around him was becoming just a little more than shadows. 

It was nothing new. Levi had stayed behind to work on other skills multiple times and his coach and teammates had just learned to leave the club room open. Levi would leave an extra thirty minutes to an hour later than his companions, 

At that training though, with little incentive to break away from that small bubble he had built for himself, not a lot of things could have broken his concentration. Fifteen minutes into his hurdles exercises, the distraction came. Levi was raising one leg, positioning himself to jump a hurdle when he caught a shadow from his peripherals. 

_Someone had been watching him in the dark._

_He was alone. Or he was supposed to be alone at least._

The combination of those realizations and the exhaustion that threatened to take over Levi only caused Levi to stumble on the hurdle in front of him and fall forward onto cold ground. 

“Hey! You okay?”

It was that same voice from that same conversation Levi had walked away from just an hour ago. The voice was as loud and as annoying as it was an hour ago that even when his shadow was still a good few meters away, Levi remembered how it felt with her forehead once again pressed on his and her grip on his two hands. 

Levi was frozen on the ground, his body still in shock at the sudden loss of control and the whiplash of what he had just imagined. 

“That looked painful.” Her voice was softer than it was a second ago. Hange put her hand on his.

Levi pulled away instinctively, and winced as his palms protested the quick action. Levi looked at his palms. In the dim light, he could see three long gashes lined up in the middle. Blood was starting to come out as well.

Levi was exhausted. The impact and the aftermath of falling on the ground, front first and the friction burns that followed, only further drained what was left of his energy. 

By the time Hange helped him up by the shoulders Levi was almost motionless, the small movements he made were carefully calculated for fear of aggravating the dull pain. 

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

* * *

“Sorry about a while ago… People say I’m just a little too intimidating but I just get really excited about these types of things. You had such a good running form. You jump so high. You get a really good height above the hurdles… “ Hange gave him a consoling look. “Except that last one.” 

Hange was closer to him than what Levi would have preferred at first. Oddly, he had gotten used to it quickly enough, particularly because he had no other choice. 

The gashes on his palms were bloody and painful. With little to no means to bandage them himself, he was left to rely on the only person there and as Levi soon found out, she had problems with maintaining a comfortable social distance from people. 

_And she never stopped talking._

“Are the bandages too tight?” Hange asked, in between other ramblings Levi had tuned out.

“‘No.” The only words Levi had said since they had arrived in the club room fifteen minutes ago.

“Okay, let’s move on to your knees.” 

Levi had not surveyed the damage himself but he guessed it was probably worse than his palms from Hange’s concerned frown. 

“You’re gonna need stitches for this. The clinic probably isn’t open so you might have to go to the hospital… We could call a taxi and---”

“You’re a pre-med student, can’t you do it yourself?”

Hange blushed. “You trust me to do it?”

"A trip to the hospital will just be a waste of time." Levi admitted. 

Hange rummaged deeper into the first aid kit. "This is gonna be painful though."

 _Better than taking a trip to the hospital now._ Levi braced himself for it and decided to distract himself from the discomfort of the whole ordeal. 

“How does it feel? Flying in the sky like that?” Hange asked. At that point, Hange had started to talk more purposefully, as if she wanted to get a point across to him. 

Levi guessed that it was all an attempt to distract him from the mini operation she was giving him. From his angle, Levi could not see the extent of the injuries, nor did he want to. The pain was bearable, although it was still much worse than what he would have considered a discomfort. 

“I’ve always wanted to take a sport like that, maybe gymnastics, maybe figure skating or track and field? That’s the closest people can get to flying right?” Hange was asking too many questions but it was obvious she was not expecting answers. 

Her words flowed as smoothly as the movement of the needle and thread he could see from his angle. 

Something about the way she talked to him was comforting and eventually Levi had almost completely relaxed, the pain of needle to torn skin a distant memory. He lay back on the bench and closed his eyes, focusing not on her words but instead on the familiar warm tone as she spoke. 

The sensation of needle to skin, the burning pain, the dizziness that followed. They were all too familiar. All accompanied by that familiar warm voice. 

_Maybe we should just live here together. Right Levi?_

_If we keep running and hiding, what will that get us._

Hange's voice tore into his daydream. “What do you mean? Are you running from something?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting on my computer untouched for a while, along with the timeline I prepared for a multichapter fic. Will probs go back to it soon. Feedback is very much appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Hey! Are you alive?"_

Levi's body was on fire. Another type of pain, added to the list that only grew longer and longer the more mornings he woke up to. 

It was new. In the grand scheme of things though, it was routine. When Levi woke up, the pain was already fading into a distant memory. He knew it could be easily soothed with a Tylenol and a few more minutes in bed. He had to press his face harder into the pillow, focusing on the feeling of cloth and cotton on his face to get a grip on his reality. He wanted to hear that voice again but at the same time he wanted to escape that pain. 

That voice was familiar. Levi was sure when he showed up for training she would be there, and he could listen to her again. He ended up adding salt to the wounds though as he remembered the last few things he had said to her the night before.

It could have been from the stress of the whole ordeal or the embarrassment of having blurted out a bunch of nonsense. 

_Who the hell are we escaping from?_ Levi had scrambled for an answer then. What came out were a string of words he wished he had never said. 

_“Nothing.”_

_“Hey, I’ve spent a lot of time talking, I wanna learn something about you too.”_

_“My life is none of your business.”_

She had kept quiet soon after. As Levi recalled how she had offered to take him home, he only buried his face further into the pillow. A part of him thought that maybe if he deprived himself of oxygen enough, he could forget the conversation between them.

_“How far is your house from here? I’ll take you home. It’s my fault you got injured anyway.”_

_“It’s fine.”_

_“You sure you’ll get home safe?”_

_“Why do you care? We just met. I couldn’t care less either if you got home safe or not.”_

_We just met. Obviously I wouldn’t care_ **_too_ ** _much about her._ His meager justification did nothing to placate the guilt that had taken over him, leaving him unable to move.

He remembered the face she had made before he turned away and limped home. He had thought to himself then that maybe she just wore her heart on her sleeve. Most people probably would have thought the same thing as they saw the way she bit her lip and looked away. She could have been about to cry. Levi could not help but think though that she wouldn’t. _Her mental resilience is stronger than that._ Levi just knew.

Either way, Levi still regretted his actions that night. He spent the next few minutes in bed gathering himself up mentally for his morning training. As he pushed himself into a sitting position and planted his feet on the floor next to his bed, he felt his knees protest at the weight. At that moment, the dull pain on his palms also made themselves known. 

_Of course it wouldn’t heal. How long has it been 12 hours?_ When injured, most of his teammates could easily skip training with little to no consequences, as long as they sent a text. Most of his teammates still showed up anyway to watch. Feeling a little guilty for having skipped training just yesterday, Levi decided to show up anyway. 

It was a force of habit more than anything for Levi to throw his jacket and shorts on, grab his gym bag and hurry to the track as soon as he saw the first signs of the sun about to rise. In fact, he only realized how completely useless it was to be thirty minutes early when he was already sitting alone in the empty clubroom, entertaining himself by looking for patterns in the stains and discolored blots on the ceiling.

He considered going back to the dorm and just informing his coach on his recent injury. He had already exited the clubroom when he decided otherwise. 

The track stretched out in front of him, illuminated by the dim light from the sunrise. The morning was notably cooler and Levi remembered that summer was ending soon, if it hadn’t ended yet. The days would only get colder and classes were starting next week. How long would he be able to enjoy a morning walk without having to wear an extra layer or without considering how he could fit in a shower before his next class? 

Levi ignored resistance of the stitches on his knees and the stinging pain of sweat and bandages rubbing against his palms, allowing himself a slow jog around the oval. He promised himself instead to sit out the rest of the training. His coach would probably stop him anyway when he sees the state of Levi’s hands and knees. 

“Levi!” 

It turned out Levi was right. Time had gone faster as Levi focused on the rhythm of his breathing, the cool wind that brushed past him and the scenery that blurred past him. Also, his coach had stopped him as soon as he arrived.

“What happened to you?” Greg gave Levi a onceover before shaking his head. 

“I fell while jumping on the hurdles.”

“Get that checked. I’m not allowing you to join training until you see a doctor.”

Levi looked down to see blood seeping from the white of the bandages. His stitches split open. He could barely give his coach a nod, too disappointed by being forced out of training, a little angry at Hange for indirectly causing that energy, too conflicted by his own feelings. He grabbed his phone which he had left on the table next to the track and walked away from the track.

He had to grab the gym bag he left in the club room. He made sure to take the long way back, the scenic route with more trees than people. Having just been told off by his coach, having been barred from training, Levi felt like he was taking a walk of shame and he preferred not to run into anyone else. 

He checked his phone. It was six in the morning. The university clinic opened at eight. He could kill those two hours quickly in the empty clubroom while everyone was training. By the time they finished morning training, he would be on his way to the clinic. 

He had plans of just lying on the bench for the next two hours, exhausting all the content in all of his social media timelines and maybe getting into some other Wikipedia or article black hole. On his way to the clubroom, he set his alarm for 7:45 that morning. 

As he arrived in the clubroom though, he found himself occupied by something else. 

Everyone in the club always put their stuff away in the cubbyholes to the side. There was more than enough space for everyone. Yet somehow, even with three cubby holes open, someone had decided to leave their bag half open on the floor with what looked like half its contents spilling out. 

Levi gathered what had spilled out. He had the option of just dropping it into the bag leaving the problem of organizing it to the owner. His fastidiousness took over though and Levi found himself spreading out the contents of the bag and putting it into the bag in a way that would have made it take the least space in the cubby. 

“Sorry. I forgot my phone in my bag.”

Levi heard footsteps and voices just outside the clubroom and it was only then was he become aware of the fact that he had invaded someone’s privacy. He hurriedly pushed the contents of the bag into the nearest cubbyhole. 

His hands though were not at their strongest, still sore from the accident last night. It was at the moment the door opened did the bag fall again on the floor, its contents spilling out, more haphazardly and messily than he had found it.

He looked up at the door to see Hange and behind her, another student. 

"Levi…" Hange’s mouth was turned up in a smile but her eyes were expressing otherwise. 

Levi wondered what he looked like crouched down next to her bag, with its contents spread out all over the room. From the way Hange was staring at him, he guessed he could have even looked like a criminal. "I made a rule here. All bags go in the cubbyhole," Levi tried to keep an authoritative tone as he said it, maybe it could make up for the compromising position they had found him in, somehow.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry." Hange rushed beside him, carelessly gathering things into one bundle. 

Levi noticed she kept herself a polite distance from him, purposefully pushing her bag into one of the cubbyholes farther away from where her bag had fallen. 

"Just don't mess up the clubroom again."

Levi lay back on the bench as soon as the door closed behind him and propped his phone on his face. He could not even bring himself to even turn it on and lazily scroll through some timeline. As he listened to the footsteps get further away, Levi closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The rush of incomprehensible emotions had left him cold as he lost one of the few opportunities he did have to talk to her. 

_Why? Why couldn't I chase after her?_

A part of him wanted to run after her, apologize then maybe thank her for last night. 

A part of him was also just as pissed off with the chain of events. He was injured. He couldn't train. The club room was a mess. Hange had something to do with all of it. 

His four years living in his own tiny island with only training and studies keeping him company had left him unable to process the strong emotions that came with human interaction. 

_Why does she make me so angry?_

He was aware that he was abrasive and sometimes too frank. It had never bothered him then. He had always believed that it was also the other party's responsibility to handle their emotions well. Hange had handled it better than many other people in similar positions yet...

 _Why do I care that it hurt her? How the hell did I say something so offensive so wrong?_ In fact despite his inability to express a lot of feelings, Levi did care enough about people to check on injured teammates and help grandmas cross the street. 

He turned his phone on, deciding to occupy himself with Twitter for the next two hours. Watching people fight online was oddly calming. 

* * *

By the time Levi made it to the university clinic, the bandages on his knees were bloody. The red buds had bloomed into adult flowers. Underneath, the stitches had to be redone, and Levi was prescribed antibiotics to prevent infection. 

One of the nurses offered to go out of campus to buy it for him. Levi hid under the covers of one of the vacant beds in the nurse's office while waiting. The clinic was empty save for one nurse and one doctor with not many students living on campus just yet.

Levi found himself going through his timeline first, then articles on dreams. 

By the time the doctor had checked on him, to ask him if he had plans to at least take a late lunch, Levi was in a black hole with 50 tabs open. They weren't about dreams or were they from random links he had found on his timeline. 

They were all about Hange Zoe, pages worth of articles with pictures of her at varying ages. The awards varied, some were in the form of certificates, others as trophies. The girl behind them all was the same chestnut haired girl with that same overenthusiastic glint in her eyes. 

_Kid whiz Hange Zoe bags gold in the city wide_

_Governor congratulates the representative to the national Science symposium._

_7 year old genius has big plans for the future._

_Hange Zoe talks about future plans. "I want to test the physical limitations of the human body."_

_I wanna see how far we can throw, how fast we can run, how high we can jump, how high we can fly._

"Fucking stupid. Humans can't fly." Levi muttered to himself. He sat up in bed and checked the time at the corner of his phone. 

3:00pm. 

Afternoon training would generally start at five. He had time for a late lunch. Or dinner. 

Nothing in the university was open though and the raw stitches on his knees continued to ache. Levi found himself staying in the club room two hours before training was to start, having Mcdonalds delivered instead at the doorway of the clubroom.

A few times he had heard footsteps by the door, he stood up the first two times, just to check who it had been. The clubrooms were lined up near the athletics area. All the sports teams hung around that area, he should not have been too surprised to realize that none of the foot traffic in that hour were from anyone in his team. In fact, he should not have expected that any of them would have been Hange. 

_Why the hell am I looking for her anyway?_

Levi shifted to his side. The bench did not give him much room to roll completely and Levi found himself having to grasp at the sides to stay on the bench and avoid falling painfully on the ground and further aggravating his stitches. 

With his two hands occupied, it became a choice. Either his knees or his phone was to take the impact of the ground beneath him. He chose to sacrifice his phone.

As Levi reached out to grab his phone from under the bench a few seconds later, he came across a small trinket on the floor. It was a ring was covered with purple cloth, the middle of the ring covered with some sort of web. The borders were lined with feathers, soft to his touch. Levi wondered whether the feathers were real or not. 

Levi sat back on the bench and brought the keychain closer to his eyes. It turned out the ring was not covered in cloth. It was covered in threads so pressed closely to each other, from afar it had looked like one surface. He carefully traced the dark green strings that were interwoven so tightly around the purple cloth, no pattern was the same, no hole was of the same size or shape. It could have been homemade.

 _Who the hell left this here._ Levi took a picture with his phone and sent it to the team chat. 

**Lost and Found.**

Most had denied owning it. For a while Levi suspected that they could have been scared he would get mad. He knew he had a reputation when it came to cleaning and clutter. He was considering adding that he wasn’t angry eventually deciding against it. Would they believe him anyway?

**One of the med students probs.**

_So it’s Hange’s?_ It was an excuse to message her at least. Before Levi could even process what he did, he had searched Hange’s name on Facebook. 

No account. He would have at least expected to find a profile with one or two mutual friends. They went to the same school after all. He checked the school supergroup to find that no one there was named Hange Zoe. 

_So she doesn’t have an account?_

He looked through other groups built for their team. He looked for a medical students group, looking one by one at the profiles for a familiar face. One of the profiles had the face of the blond man who was behind Hange when they had found him that morning. 

Levi had a habit of forgetting faces. The awkwardness and the embarrassment he had gone through had only made that memory more vivid in his mind. That vividness at least was the reason why he had found a lead to Hange. 

**Moblit Berner.**

He clicked add friend and sent a picture of the keychain through chat. 

**Found this in the clubroom. Might be one of your friends?**

**It’s Hange’s.**

_Probably fell when her stuff got scattered on the floor._

**Okay, will give it to you when you get here.**

As Levi soon found out, the students were all out of campus and had no plans to visit training that afternoon at all. The main reason why they had showed up in the morning instead.

Levi scolded himself for not even bothering to learn their schedule. Maybe it could have alleviated his disappointment even a bit. Seeing no reason to be there in the clubroom anymore. Levi dropped a message in the chat, mentioning something about injuries and rest. 

He wasn’t lying. His stitches were fresh. His palms hurt. More importantly. He was recovering from a painful bout of disappointment.

**_We’ll be there tomorrow morning though._ **

**_Ok see you there._ **

Levi had plans of making it up to his coach the next morning by being extra early anyway. 

* * *

_I wonder what types of titans we'll get to meet today..._

It was a beautiful morning. Or possibly, it was just a relatively beautiful morning when compared to all the others where Levi had to lie in bed for an hour or so just to forget the pain and the shock of dreams he could not even remember to function. 

That morning he had awoken with a burst of energy and a motivation that followed suit. 

_I wanna talk to Hange._

The only stopping him then was the awareness of how stupid and rash it would be to make friends just because he had such a vivid dream about them. 

_Section Leader Hange Zoe._

_Special Squad Captain Levi_.

They worked too closely in his dreams. She was constantly happy, constantly annoying. She was comfortable. She had made him feel excited, calm, annoyed, an incomprehensible and tumultuous storm of emotions. The dreams were too lifelike, realistic and vivid to have just been dreams. 

Was she the reason for the painful mornings? Was she the reason Levi found himself so particularly confused around her? So abrasive? So conflicted?

Levi quickly changed into his clothes, grabbed his gymbag and rushed to the track. He did not bother to check his phone for the time anyway. The sun was rising and Moblit had said the night before. They’ll be there.

He used the walk to the track to process further the emotions that had been running through him since he remembered the dreams. 

His name was Levi Ackerman. He was a soldier. They fought these giant zombie creatures. Hange managed another team but they were stationed close and that was how they had gotten close in the first place.

It felt like some sort of roleplay Levi could just easily put into words and post online. He wondered if that’s what it felt like to be a writer. Do stories come to writers and artists in dreams just like that? Levi had considered writing it all out, completely disowning that thought after he remembered he was shitty with words. 

He probably would never channel those emotions into words or to art. Regardless, the determination to make sense of it was unwavering. Despite his awareness of the amount of stress he had caused her the past few days, the nagging self consciousness of having exposed that many facets of personality to someone, Levi was sure he wanted to talk to her. It was too strong. She must have felt it too. Maybe that’s why she was too friendly? Too touchy?

As Levi soon found out, she was touchy with a lot of other people. If Levi had checked his phone that morning, he would have seen that training was starting soon. With autumn coming, the nights were long and the sun was rising later. 

Hange was there, by the side of the track, her arms around Elijah, one of his other teammates and fellow seniors. From where he stood, Levi could not tell if she was joking or not, but he could not help but note, he had never been the object of that playful smile she gave Moblit who stood next to her with a clipboard in hand.

“Hey Four Eyes.” Levi did not need to muster up any courage to approach her. The irritation he felt at seeing her arm around someone else, that playful smile directed at Moblit provoked him enough. 

Hange’s face quickly fell as she made eye contact with him. Levi’s stomach followed suit, suddenly painfully aware of the shit he had put her through the past few days. 

“Oh yeah, Levi found your dream catcher in the clubroom.” 

The keychain! Levi had completely forgotten to bring it with him.

“Sorry about leaving it there. I shouldn’t have been too careless.” Hange’s smile was careful and rehearsed, a far cry from the one she gave Moblit only a while ago.

“I don’t have it with me now though since I had to rush here.” Levi was sure the excuse was understandable. A lot of his teammates were already warming up in the middle of track. “I could bring it later this afternoon?”

“Actually, we probably won’t be going back here for a while. We gotta prepare with classes starting soon and we got all the information we need anyway.” Moblit explained. “So we’re probably gonna invite some athletes out for an interview then work closely with them.”

“About the keychain...” _Yes, the keychain. I need to meet Hange again and give it to her._

“You can give it to Elijah here.” Hange suggested. “Or maybe...Moblit? If you’re okay working with him.”

 _Why Moblit? My teammate, Elijah?_ “Wait why?” Levi’s mind was racing with questions. The shock and confusion had left him a little disconnected from his surroundings. He almost did not notice the way Hange had pulled him to the side of the track. Suddenly, it was just the two of them, on the corner, out of earshot from everyone else. 

“This is probably the last time we’re gonna meet so I’ll be honest with you.” Hange took a deep breath. “I really wanted to work with you for my thesis but yeah I guess… with what happened the past few days I kinda realize maybe we just aren’t compatible and we might just end up driving each other crazy.” Hange added a small laugh to that cold and rehearsed smile she was giving him. It only added salt to the wounds she was already opening up with her speech. “And I guess I should have noticed this before but you really don’t like me do you? I’m sorry if I couldn’t give the best first impression.” 

_No… I really like you. You gave a great first impression._ Like always, even when Levi had wanted to say it, the words had gotten lost somewhere in its journey from mind to mouth. 


	3. Chapter 3

The forms were so painfully boring, Levi almost regretted agreeing to meet Moblit. One of the few things, if not the only thing, stopping him from backing out of the study then and there, was the hope it could give him an excuse to see her again. He planned to ease himself into the process of meeting her, not wanting to make a complete fool or a complete stalker of himself.

There was the option to ask for her number. The option to ask for her schedule. Or he could maybe just scan through enough pages on google to find some hint as to what the hell she does, where she goes and where he could possibly “accidentally” meet her. The last option had proved ineffective, Levi spent a good few hours a day doing just that. Just in case maybe, the links he found through google _do_ change. 

The sheer embarrassment and conflicted feelings that came with having delusion drive his actions, had Levi worse off than before. Although the nightmares that left him in pain in the mornings had become few and far between, he could not help but think that possibly the reason why was because he barely got any sleep anymore, kept awake by his brain trying to process that relationship he had with Hange and the story that was made known to him. 

His five hours a night had dwindled into three when classes started. His brain having no time to process the dreams during classes and training, Levi found himself taking up more time lying awake in bed, building the world his dreams were telling him about and how Hange fit into all of it. 

The lack of sleep caught up to him particularly when he was sifting through the pages of waivers and information sheets in the coffee shop near campus at nine in the morning. The words started to blur into blobs and Levi became aware of how much he hated Calibri as a font, a small issue in the grand scheme of things. Lacking sleep and utterly frustrated at his lack of progress though, Levi was finding many reasons not to read them.

He eventually gave up, instead checking box after box after box. “When do you need this?” Levi asked Moblit who sat in front of him.

“As soon as possible… But I really recommend you read ---” 

“Well, how much time are you gonna give me to read?” 

“I don’t have any classes today so I’m pretty much free the whole day.” 

“Same.” He felt the venom in his tone particularly resonate and a part of him regretted it as he said it. That day was particularly special. He had no class. With their coach out on a meeting with other schools to discuss the tournaments and line ups this year, he had given the players a day off. Levi pretty much had that whole day to himself yet, he still went to the trouble of dressing up just to meet Moblit only to find out he’d be going through pages worth of documents while half awake. “I’ll just get a cup of coffee.” 

Levi was already halfway out of seat when Moblit took out his wallet. 

“Let me pay for it.” Moblit handed Levi a few bills. He had an apologetic look on his face as if he did understand the inconvenience the study would cause anyone. The look Moblit gave him suddenly made Levi self conscious about the tone he had been answering Moblit with since a while ago. 

Levi took the money with a small nod of thanks. It was free coffee after all and he did not have much leeway given his monthly allowance.

When Levi got back to their table black coffee in one hand, he could see that Moblit had reorganized the papers, the uncompleted page sitting neatly on top. He had also opened the sandwich he had bought half an hour ago and was eating it already

“Before I forget, did you bring Hange’s keychain?” Moblit asked in between bites.

“Ah, I forgot about that.” Levi kept his tone emotionless for fear of having his guilt take over him. In fact, he never did forget about the keychain. It sat on the side table next to his bed, a glimmer of hope that that morning in the track wouldn't be the last time he saw her. 

“Maybe I could come back to your dorm with you and get it after this?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. I’m not going straight to the dorm. I have plans after this.” A blatant lie. Levi rarely forgot plans. 

“Really?” 

Levi made a show of going through his phone as he sat down. “Sorry, I didn’t check my calendar this morning. It looks like I have to work on my own stuff for my thesis with my groupmates.” Seniors did not have as many classes as lowerclassmen so the excuse for classes probably would not have worked. As Levi also was aware, the weight of the responsibility lost by only having two classes a week was replaced with the weight of the expectation of creating their own research to add to the body of knowledge in their major.

“How long is your meeting? Maybe I could stop by...” Moblit looked unsure about his own suggestion as if he too understood too the importance of thesis for any senior. 

“I dunno. It’s our first meeting and it’s pretty important since we still don’t have much planned.” At that moment, Levi thanked the heavens for his course. He was taking an interdisciplinary track so people had the option to do their thesis by group or individually. His choice of his classes had made it so that he had to do his thesis individually. Moblit did not need to know that much though.

The magic word “thesis” eventually did work in the conversation between the two seniors and finally, Moblit had dropped his shoulders in defeat. “Sorry if I’m being a little pushy. I guess that keychain is just pretty important to me too. I _was_ the one who gave it to her.” 

Levi studied the face of Moblit as they talked. Molit did not have the most memorable face so Levi had not figured it out at first glance. As he allowed himself a few seconds to focus on his features and match it to those in his dream, he realized that Moblit was the same soldier who was constantly following Hange in his dreams. “You two must be close,” Levi said. _Hange and I were close too._

"We're childhood friends.”

Levi found himself envying Moblit’s place in Hange’s life. Not wanting to engage that thought though, he instead decided to digress into something more positive for him. “So you'd know why she seemed pretty enthusiastic about her thesis.”

“She’s just passionate and gets a little too excited at times.” Moblit gave an embarrassed smile from what could have been second hand embarrassment. “I really hope you didn’t end up hating her. She really wanted to get to know you.” 

“Oh really?” _Then why doesn’t she._ Levi added to himself.

“She’s been studying athletes since we were in high school. One of our friends was actually the subject of our final thesis for high school and Hange won best research with her. She wanted to move on to studying more high level athletes and she was talking non stop about the possibility of working with an athlete here. Then when we were scouting around for athletes to possibly study, she started showing me a lot of videos of you. She could talk non stop about your form, the height you achieved, your body control. I guess that was until you guys ended up meeting...” Moblit looked like he was aware of the weight of that statement and had tried to lighten the mood with a light laugh. 

Levi rearranged that last sentence in his head. _Until she met me._

Moblit had trailed off from there and Levi wondered how what kind of face he was making for Moblit to realize he had felt guilty about it.

Moblit gave Levi a consoling look. “She seems to be progressing well with Elijah though.” 

For a second, Levi could not fathom how Moblit got the idea that that sentence could console him. In fact, just knowing that Hange had gotten over him so fast, had his chest knotting up. 

On the outside though, he made sure to raise his eyebrows and nod, to look at least a little surprised and interested. “How’s her research so far?”

Moblit shook his head in amazement. “She's working at a much faster pace than I am. After what happened with you, it’s pretty admirable she bounced back so fast.” 

“I don’t hate her. I could work with her if she really wants to.” 

“God, this makes me think I should have started earlier." Moblit rested his forehead on his palm. "Your suggestion might be hard... Last time I checked, she was neck deep in her research with Elijah already.”

* * *

Even as a senior, there were places on campus Levi had never visited. All of his classes were clustered in one small area of the campus. The track he would rush to train in would be just a five minute walk away, his dorm a fifteen minute walk or a five minute bike.

He never had any reason to visit the other side which housed the science students and the laboratories. Possibly, one of the reasons why he had never met Hange until that day in the track. 

It was a ten minute walk from his dormitory, in a completely different direction from his buildings and the track. He decided to abandon his bike for the more flexible option of walking. He did not know if they had have any place to park a bike nor how long he would be there. More importantly, he wanted the freedom of slowing his pace without considering the traffic as he took in the unfamiliar scenery. 

Third floor. Fritz Hall. 

In fact, he did not need the directions to the biology department. He could have easily asked anyone among the students there. The more important information was the room number and the laboratory name. 

He clutched the keychain in his pocket and took the stairs two at a time arriving into a narrow corridor that stretched into both directions.

 _Thesis labs._ Or that was how Mobilit described them. Each biology professor managed a laboratory for students. There were those who focused on internal medicine, those who focused on epidemiology. In each of those rooms was an office and a lab for senior students doing research under the guidance of a professor of a similar specialty.

If he wanted to find Hange, the office was their best chance. Room 301. It would be at one of the ends of the corridors. He only had to figure out the order of the numbers and from there, walk towards the end of the hall. He gripped the handle of the door and pushed it down, only pushing slightly at the door to open a crack wide enough to peek in. 

“May I help you?” 

“You’re Erwin Smith…” Just like with Hange, Levi had quickly picked up the name as he saw him. 

“Yes I am. Nice to meet you.” Erwin did not look surprised to see that someone had named him by face. That was enough of a hint for Levi to realize that that man was probably their professor on top of how he dressed and how he carried himself. 

“I’m looking for Hange Zoe.” Levi decided at that moment not to lie. He was sure he could find a reason to justify wanting to give it directly to Hange. He did not want to consider it at that moment. He just wanted to see her.

“She has class now but you can wait for her inside the lab." He gave Levi a onceover. You must be Elijah then.”

Levi gave a subtle nod, hoping Erwin would at least not take that as a full yes later on. At that point in time, he just wanted to minimize the questions he might need to answer. HIs heart was beating hard and his mind was racing. He had gone behind Moblit’s back, taking note of the schedule shared to him and picking a time where Moblit would not be in the office. Pretense and lies were nothing new to Levi but the presence of Erwin in the room particularly made Levi feel dirty for going through all that just to meet one person. With Erwin in front of him, for the first time he felt guilty lying. 

"It's obvious from your build that you've been jumping and running your whole life. I hope you could give Hange some good data. All she’s been talking about was this study since I agreed to take her in."

“What’s her research about?” _Was she enjoying working with Elijah so far? Was she happy?_ There were too many things Levi had wanted to ask but he found himself treading along the narrow path of things only Elijah would have known. 

Erwin looked at him questioningly. “She wants to do a case study. I expected she’d at least tell you that much.” He shook his head and smiled. “She always had trouble explaining science jargon to the average person.”

Levi wanted to kick himself. Erwin at least answered his own question on any suspicion he might have about Levi (or Elijah.)

“Elijah, do me a favor and ask her yourself. I’d rather Hange also learned how to communicate science to the average person.” Erwin tapped Levi on the shoulder. “Make yourself at home. NIfa’s in the laboratory right now so she can keep you company. You can also use the computer while waiting.”

Levi only noticed the book bag Erwin was holding to his side as he looked back at him. He could not help but feel a bout of disappointment as he saw the professor walk away. It felt like there was still a lot to learn from him. 

Levi entered the laboratory to find a woman with auburn hair hunched over a microscope. “Where’s Erwin going?” He asked.

“Erwin?” Nifa looked up from her “Doctor Smith you mean?”

 _Nifa. That’s her name._ Oddly, Levi did not need to ask for her name either. 

Nifa only confirmed it a second later after chastising him for calling Erwin his first name. ‘Doctor Smith did not roll out of Levi’s tongue as well as Erwin. The most Levi could hope for was he never faced a situation where he had to call him by name again. A long shot if he ended up working with Hange or Moblit. At the same time, a worry he did not want to occupy himself with again. 

“Hange’s class ends at two so you’re gonna have to wait an extra thirty minutes. You can use the computer over there to pass the time.”

Levi looked down at his phone to see only one bar on the upper right. 

“Yeah, problems about being stationed at the corner of the building. No signal. And the wifi is only strong enough for a laptop.” Nifa gestured at her own laptop next to the microscope.

Levi walked towards the computer. It was an older model but it looked well loved. He only had to click on his mouse for the screen to boot up to the home screen with some desktop background which looked like some campaign for underprivileged kids and untapped potentials.

He clicked on the google chrome icon. The option to restore pages from a previous session popped up. He had considered completely ignoring it but he considered it might be someone’s precious browsing history and instead decided to leave it on and to just open an incognito instead for his own personal browsing

He was ready to open one up when he saw the tabs that had opened up in front of him. 

_Ackerman bags gold, Miller silver in the Collegiate Cup._

Levi looked to the profile on the right to see that it was Hange’s Google profile logged into the account. _She was researching him?_

That small glimmer of what could have been happiness dissipated as soon as Levi figured out the pattern of the articles. 

It wasn’t about him. 

_High Jump Superstar Miller breaks record in high school meet._

_Miller commits to Paradis University._

_College sophomore Miller bags gold in Horizontal Jump Event._

It was torture looking through the multiple tabs that reopened. As painful as it was, he still wanted to confirm if Hange really was ‘neck deep’ in her research. The bookmarked pages, he also decided to take a peek at had confirmed his fear. There were fifty if not a hundred tabs with article titles mentioning that one athlete.

Levi found himself closing the tabs as he went through them, a small rebellion to the reality in front of him. _Hange probably bookmarked them if she needed them anyway._ He stopped as he came across a Youtube video towards the end of the string of tabs. 

_WATCH:_ _College Junior Ackerman beats both personal and national record for the High Jump Category._

_Rookie Ackerman bags gold in the Regional Cup with record breaking height._

Levi recognized those tournaments. Those were his best jumps, one of them the most recent one he had performed, only earlier that year. 

Watching the videos with the commentary felt surreal. In the interviews, he was the one answering the questions but somehow, Levi felt like he was still learning something new from the version of himself of the screen. He never did pay too much attention during interviews, only asking the questions when asked in the manner Coach Greg had directed him too. 

Not wanting to confuse himself any longer with what seemed like another out of body experience, he focused again on Hange’s Gmail account which was logged into Youtube. Just to make sure his conclusion had been real. She was still watching his videos. 

_She had committed to working with Elijah. Why?_

“Miller was slated to be the new superstar in Paradis University with a vertical jump of 8 centimeters and a promising record height differential of 40 centimeters.”

Levi jumped as he heard someone talk behind him. _How long has she been there?_ It was her voice. Yet at the same time, it was too uncharacteristically serious he did not want to believe it was her. As Levi slowly looked behind me, she only continued to talk. 

“But then four years ago, Coach Gregory Rivers scouts a new kid from a small town five hours away from the city. The kid had potential. Enough potential to maybe play backup to Elijah Miller. Levi Ackerman with a vertical leap of 76 centimeters and a record height differential of 37 centimeters.”

“Elijah Miller had a higher overall record. Mike Zacharias and Nanaba Briete too." _Mike Zacharias and Nanaba Briete_. Those were the two athletes who had cooperated with Hange's study back in high school. Levi had made sure to read her old research, in case he would have to use them to convince her to reconsider him. 

“Your numbers in high school weren’t groundbreaking. Unless we consider that you’re 157 centimeters tall." The wonder was back in her voice, completely replacing what he realized was the scientist in her talking. "You did not have the height but you had remarkable control, the core strength, the leg power and the flexibility to fly over the bar even when you’re so close to it. That was what Gregory Rivers saw in you when he scouted you for Paradis University. What he didn't expect was for you to outshine Miller or even the seniors."

Hange came up behind him and grabbed the mouse. As Levi watched her go through the bookmarks, he realized if he had scrolled further, he would have seen more bookmarks.

_Rookie Ackerman bags gold in the Regional Cup._

_Super rookie carries Paradis to nationals._

She clicked one of the bookmarks and played the the video that came up. Levi could only watch silently as the Levi on the screen ran towards the bar, and propelled himself through the air. His vertical was definitely much higher than 37 centimeters at that point. In college though, no one in his team was counting anymore. The importance was he got through every jump without ever touching the bar.

"I wanna know Levi. From a nobody from a no name school, how did your height differential increase twofold. More importantly, how is it that you've not failed a single jump since you entered university? It's amazing. The amount of balance, core strength and body control to keep your body flexible enough not to hit the bar. The amount of leg strength needed to jump that high. You really must be superhuman.”

“I’m not.” Regretfully, Levi’s denial was enough for Hange to snap out of her state of what seemed like euphoria. 

Hange put her hand to her mouth. "Sorry, I talked too much." With that, she resisted the closeness and was once again a meter away just standing awkwardly behind him. "I guess I should go back to work. Did Moblit tell you what time he'll be coming?"

"Moblit's not coming today."

"Oh... Can I help you with something?" Once again, Hange was watching her words and her movements with him. That was not the Hange from his dreams. The Hange that had introduced herself the first time they had met on the track. It pained Levi to see her like that and he wanted to make it right. 

Levi had prepared himself for possible interactions when he read through Hange's old works. At that moment, Levi took control of his feelings. " I came here because I wanted to ask if you'd be willing to consider." He kept his words as careful as Hange's were with him. "I read your case study on Nanaba Briete and Mike Zacharius. And I thought I could probably provide you with similar data, maybe better data. Let me jump for you."

"Levi…" 

"No. I wanna jump for you." Levi did not know what Hange had planned to say. At that point, he did not want to give her any doubts to build on. 

_This time I'm not going to lose you._ A voice inside him said. It disappeared soon after and Levi wondered when he had ever lost her.


	4. Chapter 4

As it turned out, Hange’s thesis wasn’t just about jumping. 

_But it would be nice to do it about flying._ She had mentioned, echoing that same sentiment in those numerous interviews he had read.

 _A case study on the changes of an athletes body and muscle composition from preseason to postseason._

Levi only found out exactly what Hange and Moblit were doing for their final thesis as she ran through it with him over coffee the morning after they met in the lab. He had to admit, he had forgotten whether or not Moblit had explained that same thing to him which was probably just easily overshadowed by the pages and pages of waivers that had been laid out in front of him. 

Hange had a different approach to the documentation. She had the same waivers that needed to be signed but had completely understood that no one would have that same drive to read the whole thing and consider the nuances and implications of every bullet point. She had just asked him to check everything and sign or she would not be able to work with him.

_Compensation. Injury Insurance. Transportation Subsidy. Meal Subsidy_

Levi quickly complied. In fact, he probably would have complied even without the benefits that came with participating in the study. He was already half way through mindlessly checking the boxes by the time Hange had mentioned those parts after all. 

“Everything is funded.” Hange had explained. He knew their university was particularly well off. Being an athlete he had been a beneficiary multiple times of free branded shoes, gym bags jackets, meals and even gadgets with championship wins

The generous funding she had received to conduct the research was particularly seen in the well equipped sports facility where Hange was to conduct said research.

 _Cardiovascular endurance, strength power, speed, power etc._ he listed the physical fitness components she wanted to study, the logistics of switching partners and starting anew completely forgotten.

It had been less than 24 hours since he visited her office and it was as if Hange wasn’t as deep into her research as Moblit had made it out to be. 

_She’s been cooped up in the lab lately, watching track and field videos._

_She’s already been talking to Elijah, they did a few tests._

There was truth to what Moblit had told him. Hange did admit to having already the preliminary data needed for her case study but as Hange had shown him soon after they started talking, she had no problem just scrapping her data or giving it to Moblit and starting again from scratch.

As Levi soon found out, she was too passionate about her research to consider the preliminary data wasted work. 

Levi had found that last part out after their talk in the lab after she had casually mentioned her lurker Instagram account on top of her blatant refusal to use Facebook and Twitter since too many social media sites were just too much to manage. He could not resist the urge to check the accounts she followed and just as he expected, they were all famous athletes from all different fields, the one thing common about all athletes being the almost inhuman height and airtime they achieved.

Nanaba Briete her friend and the subject of her high school thesis, was a volleyball player. Elijah Miller was a vertical jumper. Moblit pointed out as well, her data for both players was too comprehensive beyond what was expected from someone of her level of study. 

Levi soon realized with her YouTube and Instagram lurker activity, she probably was a stan and for some reason, he was one of the objects of her stanning activity. Levi had seen those types of people on Twitter and Instagram. They had weird voting conglomerations, used some sort of weird language and interacted incessantly with any post on the object of their stanning activity Hange was not vocal in particular, her Instagram profile and YouTube channels both empty. He only had to go through the profiles she followed to see that she left likes in most if not all pictures. Among those she had liked were profiles that reposted pictures of his jumps. 

**Liked by Wingsoffreedom132 and thousands of others.**

Levi soon realized after hours going through most if not all the accounts she followed that just like the average stan, Hange spammed the like button like crazy 

Looking deep into the comments of one of his jumps that year, he had found a comment from her. A pair of wings and a heart next to it. 

_How long has she been following him?_

_Did she have those dreams too?_

“Why?” 

“Why what?” Hange asked.

“Why me?” Levi continued. 

“I told you before. You're amazing. Your forms are all perfect, your body composition is good and that crazy fast improvement from no name player to rookie of the year?" Hange seemed too sure of herself and glimmer of hope that somehow she had any inkling of their connection in Levi's dreams dissipated. She started to rattle off numbers relating to Levi’s height differentials and vertical leap every year since high school, Levi had to note that there was some truth to what she was saying.

High jumping events had suddenly become much easier for Levi when he moved to the city for college. He had attributed it to the more frequent training that came with the more competitive environment of collegiate sports. It was an ironic turn of events though since that was also around the same time he had started experiencing those painful mornings after dreaming things he could barely member. He chose not to mention that just yet. The connection was just too illogical to be a causation or even correlation issue. It might have even just been an irrelevant coincidence. 

Levi continued to listen as she explained schedules and outlines for meet ups. There was preliminary data gathering, multiple tests to be done on weekends in a sports facility a little farther away from the school. There were a few more documents that needed to be answered and submitted similar to what Moblit had sent. It would be time consuming, inconvenient. The prospect of Hange being there made it somewhat bearable. 

So bearable, that Levi had found himself arriving at the train station Saturday morning one hour earlier than they agreed upon. They were going to the sports facility for preliminary data gathering. To his pleasant surprise, Hange was already there waiting. 

“I hope you don’t mind the shitty schedule,” Hange said in greeting. She was staring at the duffel bag Levi had slung over his shoulder. 

Levi had to stay overnight. With the sports facilities being shared among multiple researchers and multiple athletes, Hange found the most she could secure for a last minute booking was an early morning slot, offering instead to provide lodging to Levi for a night so he wouldn’t have to take a taxi late night and early morning when the trains were already closed. 

“As long as there’s a place to stay.” _It’s still better than commuting at 3am._

“Let’s drop your stuff first.” 

The sports facility was a 15 minute train ride and as Levi exited the station, he was greeted by a large building that stretched out a fair number of meters in both directions. _Was that the sports facility?_

That wasn’t their destination though. Hange guided him through a few alleys and out into a main street where a quaint mid rise condominium was located right to their left. 

“My condo only has one bedroom so I hope you won’t mind staying on the couch. It has a pull out bed though so you wouldn’t be too uncomfortable.”

Somehow Levi had expected a hotel. “Wait, I’m staying in your place?”

* * *

The area Hange lived in turned out to be only 15 minutes away by train but oddly enough, it was Levi’s first time there. He found himself just gazing at nothing in particular but whatever was in front of him at that moment as they walked through the streets. They were going to have brunch in a nearby cafe, Hange had clarified. He found himself particularly entertained by the crowds, the grey pavement and the tall buildings that lined his view all making up the urban jungle of the center of town.

The university and the surrounding town where Levi spent a good chunk of his five years was located in a quieter part of the city which Levi had gotten accustomed to pretty fast when he moved there. He never left that area unless necessary for competitions or for schoolwork. Consequently, he was not completely used to the bustle at the center of the city, 

They had settled into a diner in a small part or town with Hange offering to pay for the lunch. As soon as they had given their orders, Hange slid a document to him with the words “personal data sheet” written in bold on the top. “In the final output, you will remain anonymous, Erwin just requested we keep the basic data on everyone we study.” Hange explained.

Levi scanned the document before looking up at Hange again. By the way she had looked at him, Levi was sure she could have answered some of it for him. “Why don’t you answer it for me.“ He challenged.

“It’s your data Levi so I---”

“I wanna see how much about me you know.” Levi answered with a no-nonsense tone.

Hange turned red as she pulled the form back towards herself. She scribbled a few things on the paper. “Where do you live?”

Levi gave his city and province. 

“I knew that much.” Hange admitted. “Exact address?” 

Levi answered it briefly, spelling it out when needed. “How many siblings do I have? What are their names?”

“Trick question. You’re an only child.” Hange said, looking up from the data sheet. 

“The number question isn’t a trick question. You can answer with zero.” Levi continued. He did not need to make an effort to keep his tone playful. He was amused already. “And how do you know about my family?”

“Interviews.” Hange answered briefly.

Levi smiled. “I know you’re an only child too.” 

“How did you know that?” Hange asked.

“Interviews.” Levi could see she had relaxed, a small smile creeping up her lips. 

“So you’re researching me too.” She asked.

“You started it.” 

“Which city am I actually from?” Hange challenged.

“You grew up here…” Levi answered. He sat up a little straighter. Seeing the amused smile on Hange's face, Levi felt it was a good time for other questions. His mind raced as he articulated one of his passing thoughts as he read through her articles. “Which brings up the question, if you live so near campus, why do you live in your own condo?” _The public transport here isn’t shit either._ Levi noted to himself. She had little excuse to live alone and from the looks of her place, she seemed to come from a well off family who could at least afford a place like that. 

“I wanted freedom.” 

* * *

The gym was huge. It was also so complete, the coverage so comprehensive that Levi was almost inspired to take up all the sports offered. They had indoor basketball courts, tennis courts and a complete track and field set. 

The important part Hange pointed out as they entered though were the devices that could measure things like speed, weight, pulse, all necessary for her study. One of the more boring parts of the tour but surprising none the least. 

Levi found himself particularly fixated on the fact that Hange was greeting everyone in the job like a regular. 

"Hey, you weren't at the gym this morning."

"Had to pick up my friend here. He'll be helping me with my thesis."

Levi felt a tap on his back, brief and light. _Maybe hesitant?_ Levi could not help but entertain the passing thought that if he were Moblit or maybe anyone else, she probably would have had her arm around his shoulders. He had seen her make that gesture towards Moblit and Elijah after all.

As Hange walked towards the desk and made conversation with what looked to be the receptionist, Levi watched her from behind. At first she had seemed too nerdy and too geeky that he had expected her to be lanky under the sweaters and the white coats she wore. 

That day, she was in shorts and a blouse and Levi could not help but notice how her body curved underneath her clothes, and as he focused on her legs, he could make out the subtle muscle cuts on her legs. Hange's physique was definitely more toned than average and Levi pondered Hange's own physical fitness. 

_Her vertical. Her endurance. Her strength._ The same things she had mentioned wanting to study about him.

As Hange gave him a tour though, Levi decided that it could wait until later. 

* * *

That morning, with only less than a minute to drop his bag and could only afford a glance of her room. 

As he arrived back there late in the afternoon after a long tour of the gym, he had to stop himself from making a face. The fastidious side of him was silently judging Hange.

It was obvious in the way Hange had prepared the bed and the way that most tables and furniture had space for a visitor to sit or rest that Hange had at least cleaned in anticipation.

_But she's a horrible cleaner._

The sofa bed was prepared but the sheets were wrinkled. The trashcan was overflowing, a disturbing sign that Hange did not segregate her trash. The dining table was empty but a display table at the corner of the room took the brunt of what Levi guessed the dining table used to carry. 

There were jackets messily folded on the display table and Levi recognized her schoolbag particularly by the keychain he had returned only a few days ago. 

“Make yourself at home.” Hange dropped a few towels on the sofa bed before making her way to her own bedroom. “You can use the shower in the powder room. Also, what do you want for dinner?” 

“Anything.” Levi answered. He was still bothered by the state of the room to demand much of anything. The food was free, the accommodation was free, he felt guilty just complaining internally.

Hange seemed unbothered by the shitty state of her “cleaned up room.” In fact she had seemed proud as she toured him around her house. As Levi watched Hange with her goofy smile as she played with her phone in between bites of the pizza they had ordered, he could not help but feel guilty for having harbored such negative thoughts when Hange seemed more relaxed than he had seen her in a while.

“What are you watching?” Levi asked, an attempt at conversation more than anything. There were things he had wanted to ask her, yet at that moment, he felt would seem too intrusive. 

Hange turned her phone to him. The video Hange had been looking at was that figure skater glided to the rink and jumped into the air, rotating quickly. 

“I didn’t know you liked figure skating.” Levi said, his eyes focused on the heart on the side, to see it filled over. Hange liked the video. 

“I like a lot of sports. I definitely would have wanted to try skating as a kid. Maybe gymnastics or even track."

Levi tried to imagine Hange in a tutu or a leotard, having to hold back a snort as he did. “You never looked like the type to wear a dress.” 

“I wouldn’t. But I’m pretty sure you know how fun it would be to be able to launch yourself up in the air like that. You’ve done it multiple times.”

Levi thought back to the interviews he had read, the answers she had made even since grade school. _I want to see how people can fly_. “Why didn’t you take a sport as a kid?”

The smile she had given him after was wry, a little sullen and Levi knew he must have hit something sensitive inside her. “Because my parents didn’t allow me. If I take gymnastics, I’d break my neck. If I take skating, I’d break my spine. If I take track and field, I’d break my knees." She explained in an almost mocking town."They never ran out of excuses when it came to sports. But when it came to academics, they were always shipping me off to some new competition.”

 _I wanted freedom._ That afternoon in the cafe, Hange had answered it so casually, he had brushed it off as they continued to fill out the data sheets. As he listened to Hange explain her situation right there, Levi could not help but recall a twinge of sadness in Hange’s voice as she had said the word “freedom.”

“Don’t get me wrong, academics can be fun.” Hange said. “But I don’t think it’s ever going to beat the adrenaline rush of jumping or sprinting.”

“And that’s why you’re going to the gym a lot now.” 

“I’m in college. My parents can’t stop me now. But yeah, my childhood is done. I don’t think I’ll ever get to your level, even when I train everyday.”

Levi had heard people say that before. The body of a child is flexible, the bones and muscles can still be easily molded. By the time people grow to be adults, their body is set and sure, they could probably jump or run along a track casually, collegiate competition and professional competitions were out of the question for most if not all people who start a sport as an adult. 

"Maybe I can teach you?"

* * *

The Hange in Levi’s dreams was able to fly. She was the one who would be screaming as they glided through the air in those contraptions. She had the ability to launch herself up in the air, to flip, to spin, just like the athletes in the videos she constantly followed.

Hange wasn't at all out of shape either. In fact as he saw her in gym clothes and as he watched her do a few rounds around the empty track, he had to note that her form was good. Her physique and the cuts in her muscles were also well defined. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the Hange who was watching him do rounds of jumps as she took notes was the same Hange in his dreams. 

The bar Hange had set for him was clearable with little to no effort. After clearing a few rounds, enough for Hange to be satisfied with the preliminary data, he took the stopwatch from her hands and guided her to the place he had positioned himself a while ago. He opted to adjust it a few centimeters lower, at a height he had seen less skilled jumpers back in high school clear with no problems.

He spent a few minutes going through the basics with her, particularly the method of softening a landing, having seen teammates from long ago get injured from that in particular. 

“You’ve seen me jump countless times. I’m sure you can do it.” Levi assured. He knew that that last part was for himself more than anything. It pained him to see her nervous. Her face was a far cry from the Hange he knew.

_She should know how to do it right?_

Keeping the bar at its minimum and going through that landing with Hange a few times had turned out to be a good decision. It was in the way Hange had run to the bar, through the way her eyes went wild as she ran and as she landed right next to the bar that had fallen did Levi realize though, that Hange was terrified. 

Terrified yet determined. Hange went back to her starting point and prepared herself for it a few more times. 

“You don’t have that bounce in your step when you take off.” Levi bounced on the balls of his feet a few times for emphasis.

Hange gave him a quick nod before readying herself to run again. Levi could see she was tired. As Hange went through the motions pre jump, Levi could feel his heart beat faster. It took him a split second longer to realize why. Hange’s motions were wild and unsynchronized. 

Levi did not say anything for fear of distracting her and possibly causing injury. He found himself running towards her instead. He was too late though. By the time he had arrived by the bars, she had fallen on it. One side of the bar flailed up in the air as Hange landed and she let out a loud gasp of surprise. 

“Hey, you okay?” Levi asked, as he crouched next to her. He had kept his voice soft for fear of her hearing the panic in it. 

Hange was lying face up on the mat, her light brown eyes looking longingly above her. 

They had started training in the stadium at four in the morning, hours before the sun was scheduled to rise. It was only when Levi saw how unnaturally light Hange’s eyes were did he realized the ceiling above them was glass, and the sun had risen enough for the light to reflect on it.

“Must be nice to fly huh?” Hange voiced out before sitting back up again. “I’m fine but I think I bruised my shoulder.” She reached out for her right shoulder with her left hand and winced. 

Having been jumping almost his whole life, Levi had forgotten for a while, how difficult the mechanics would be to pick up for the average adult. While gazing at Hange who had bent her head back and continued to watch the sunrise from the glass ceiling, Levi continued to reflect on it. If it were any other person, he probably would have even removed the bar as he thought them the mechanics. 

The game changer in those particular circumstances was that it was Hange he was teaching, the subject of his dreams, the one who was flying with him from tree to tree in the forest. The one who was smiling and doing backflips, provoking him to chase her. For the life of him, Levi could not believe that she was not able to clear that jump. 

* * *

The sullen mood of a while ago quickly dissipated to something a little more bearable when Levi suggested they play on the trampolines adjacent to the track. 

It had felt ridiculous at first. As Hange continued to gaze upward, mumbling about wanting to fly and as Levi himself dealt with the disappointment of what just happened, it had seemed like a logical suggestion. 

It was the most mindless way he could come up with to get both of them flying and jumping and maybe, get them both cheered up in the process.They only had to bounce a few times for it to be exciting. After a few bounces, Hange started to laugh, she started to scream in excitement.

The same excited scream he had heard so many times before in his dreams. Levi found himself staring at Hange as she jumped. The spark in her eye was brighter than it had ever been. Her cheeks were starting to flush from what could have been excitement or exhaustion. After what could have been a few more minutes of jumping, Hange had landed on her ass and gave a loud laugh in between gasps. 

“Something tells me you haven’t done this before.” Levi said as he settled on the floor of the trampoline next to her. 

“Parents didn’t allow me.They said I’d break my ankle.” Hange answered, after she had gotten control of her ragged breathing. She was sweaty and flushed but she looked carefree.

That was the Hange Levi was familiar with. Before Levi even noticed it, he had brought out his hand and lightly touched her on the side of her arm. Oddly enough, she did not resist the light and quick squeeze he had given her. As Levi looked closely at her, he guessed she probably didn’t notice or didn’t care. He quickly let go of her arm, a few seconds after he had noticed the odd action. Before that, he had allowed himself a few seconds to process the warmth of her skin and the up and down movement that came with her heavy breathing. It was oddly calming and assuring.

_She's real. She's alive. She's warm and she's breathing._

Soon after that, they were kicked out of the gym. Actually, no one had kicked them out. The Sunday gym goers though had taken up their territory on the track as they started their warmups. Levi and Hange soon realized their time was up. The rude awakening to that reality had felt like they were being kicked out anyway.

It also turned out, the giant trampoline Levi suggested they played on was only for the children's use. One reason, Hange had never bothered to touch it even when she did frequent the gym. 

Hange had sleepily explained that part to him as she sprawled herself on the sofa of her condominium that afternoon. The early morning in the gym had left her exhausted. She fell asleep soon after and Levi could not help but notice the smile on her face as she slept. He wondered if she usually smiled in her sleep. 

Levi settled himself on one of the chairs around the dining table in a good position to watch her, busying himself by going through all the Instagram profiles Hange had followed, following them using his own account. Some of the videos were in slow motion and Levi found himself in that same blackhole as Hange had been in many times before, begrudgingly agreeing that Hange was right. 

The slow motion videos in particular showed the detail. The way the legs make a slight bounce before launching up, the slight movements the body made as it is suspended in the air. Levi knew there was a lot of body coordination involved in getting the highest vertical possible. Seeing the body work together, the miniscule movements all cooperating to get the jumper spinning, flipping or twisting was oddly satisfying. Levi was distracted, so distracted the only thing that could break it was the vibration of his phone accompanying the banner on top. 

**Coach Greg.**

Levi was once again pulled out of his blackhole. Of course he’d have to train. He had missed multiple trainings the past week due to the wound in his knee. He had also missed yesterday morning’s training having to meet Hange. Their season was starting in a few weeks and he was their best chance at a championship that year. Levi wasn’t too surprised that their coach was more than ready to run through drills with him on a Sunday night.

After a few minutes of digging through Hange’s unit, Levi managed to unearth a pile of post-its and a pen. _Thank you for letting me stay over. Gotta run._ He wrote. He kept it short and simple, knowing he would probably end up chatting with her soon anyway. He stuck it on the dining table, slung his overnight bag over his shoulder and silently left the room.

As he took the train back to campus, Levi continued on his little blackhole. A video was just released, taken in a tournament in Russia just a few days back. 

_Quad Queen Alexandra Trusova._

Levi did not know his way around figure skating jumps but he found himself watching it in slow motion anyway. The sped up version was surprising but the slow motion version that followed was mesmerizing. Levi counted four spins in the air, noting both the slight bounce before the jump and the bounce that followed the landing.

As Levi refreshed the video on his phone, he could not help but notice that Hange’s name still wasn’t among those who had liked the photo. _Was she still asleep?_

He could only imagine the smile she makes as she watches videos. He clicked the paper airplane icon below the videos, scrolled through the users and clicked send on Wingsoffreedom132. He made sure to add a wings emoji and a heart emoji, the way Hange had done in a few of the videos. 

Somehow, after doing that, it became easier to imagine that goofy smile a little more vividly. 


	5. Chapter 5

The stitches on Levi’s knees had been removed long ago. A scab formed soon after though --- or to be specific--- a bunch of small scabs from the smaller wounds that had formed conglomerates on his knees. 

Levi was tempted to pick at them. The nurse had mentioned something about infections and had explicitly ordered him not to do just that. His coach rode on that theory soon after and Levi found himself spending a good amount of energy just keeping up the self control.

Some had fallen in time but what remained where parts of the scab that were embedded more deeply into the wounds and the beginnings of ugly scars on both his knees. 

Most days, he could ignore it. In fact, he had forgotten they existed for a good long while, especially when he had more important things occupying his mind: Hange’s research, school work and the upcoming track and field season. 

The upcoming season was the biggest problem at hand. And that was the one problem that had brought the glaring wounds in his knees back to the spotlight. Levi had been too preoccupied with Hange to have even noticed that during the weeks following his injury, his coach had given him a lighter regimen.

It was late afternoon on Sunday, a few hours after he had arrived back on campus from Hange’s place. It was just him and his coach in the middle of the oval and his coach looked more than ready to whip Levi into shape. 

They had just gotten the schedule for the season and their first event was the high jump. As expected, his coach had assigned him to that event. He was the record holder last year after all. 

_That was last year though._ Levi thought to himself as he slowly got up after his eighth failed jump of the night. He was sure he was not out of shape. In fact, he always spent more time in the oval when they were on their off season. It wasn’t supposed to be so hard to reproduce the championship winning jumps he was lauded for being so consistent in.

That night, Levi could not clear it. He was shorter than most high jumpers and it was expected that naturally, he would not get a good height above the bar. He never did anyway, usually just missing the bar by a few centimeters or even millimeters. Regardless, he consistently cleared heights despite the lack of distance he was able to generate between him and the bar. And that consistency was the reason why Levi never considered the height a problem until it was right in front of him. He should have known though that if there were only a few millimeters separating him and the bar, then any small detail could be enough to throw him off.

His mind was racing when he considered the culprit. Was it the exhaustion that was slowly creeping into him? It shouldn’t have been that. Levi had found ways to work past it before. Was it the nervousness? The pressure? Then why had he performed so well before?

Levi went through the movements again, that time not focusing on how to clear the height but on the different sensations that coursed through his body. As he positioned himself to jump up right next to the bar, he picked it out. It manifested as dull pain at first, something he would barely have given a second thought to if it were any other day. As he launched himself up, it protested painfully the quick extension of his knee. 

_Was it the scab?_ Levi landed painfully on the bar that had dislodged from its place. That was definitely going to leave a bruise. 

“You okay?” 

Levi felt his coach’s hand on his arm as he was guided gently into a standing position.. 

“That’s enough for today.” His coach’s tone was light yet slow and careful. Levi sensed the disappointment in it. 

As Levi went for his bag, he went through the different motions of walking a little more slowly, taking note of any restrictions in his movement. The main one turned out to be the scab, that would protest as he extended it. It was not too much of an issue when he was still going through the lighter drills. The two meter bar was his newest challenge and in a few weeks he needed to be able to clear it easily. 

He had considered telling his coach about the wound, quickly shooting down the idea when he realized he would rather not lighten his training load soon with the first event of the season just a few weeks away. 

That night in bed, he allowed himself a few minutes to look over the scab. It was brown and ugly. As he ran his hand through it, he was surprised to find out that although it was particularly thick, pushing it further aggravated the pain. Levi made a few experimental scratches on it before realizing that it was still too connected to the wound beneath. Not wanting to risk any infections though which the nurse and his coach had so conscientiously explained to him, Levi sat back on the bed and distracted himself browsing whatever was on his phone. 

He did a quick google search on it. The scab should fall out eventually. He opened his messages on Instagram to see Hange had replied to the video he had sent with a video of her own. 

**Kostornaia Triple Axel.**

**I like Axels better**

Levi ended up watching a video on basic figure skating jumps before even replying to Hange. For some reason, he didn’t want her to think he was ignorant. 

Hange was right. The axel jump was impressive. The only figure skating jump with a forward take off. Levi found himself going through the mechanics the next morning when he was alone in the oval 30 minutes before training was supposed to start. 

The jumps definitely required momentum from the glide, similar to the moment he would get running towards the bar before a high jump. 

_The axel is one of the hardest jumps in skating because it is difficult to get the rotations from a forward take off._

The force from the twist is generally a good source of momentum. Probably one of the reasons why most high jumpers jumped the way they did. In high jump events, jumping from a forward position was generally allowed but most high jumpers launched themselves from behind due to the higher amount of force that could be chaneled from that. As a little experiment to placate his own curiosity, and maybe to even give Hange something to ponder on, Levi jumped forward, similarly to what he had seen in the axel video. 

As expected, within a few seconds Levi was face down on the ground, next to the bar he had snagged on the way down. 

The fall was as painful and probably a little more embarrassing than his own falls the night before, even with his coach watching then. Levi could not even imagine how ridiculous he looked. 

At least no one was there to see him fall. Levi allowed himself a long look at the sky above him as he went through the movements in his head. He could easily just repeat the same jump. He eventually decided against it though as he realized it caused unnecessary pain, it was an injury risk and for sure it would be embarrassing if one of his teammates caught him in the act of reproducing a figure skating jump on the field. The forward take off was far from efficient but somehow it felt nostalgic. It felt inefficient yet intimate, an incompetent old friend. 

In his dreams, Levi was taking off, flying forward in a similar pattern. It was a mixture of possibly cables and gas that had kept him afloat then. How exactly the gas and the cables work, he couldn't completely understand. For sure there was nothing similar where he lived, maybe the closest was a plane.

Either way, it was flying and Dream Hange and Real Hange were right. It was fun. 

That burst of energy was what got him attempting the high jump again over the two meter bar he had set. He was aware of the whispers as the oval started to fill up with his own teammates. 

He could not make out what they were saying but the confusion and possibly disappointment in their tones and in their whispers could only point to one thing. One glaring reality. Levi was unable to clear the two meter jump without dropping the bar. 

He did it before. In fact he had cleared a 2.3 meter jump. That achievement was what broke a record and lead the team multiple collegiate championships in the first place.

That training, his coach had decided to focus on other athletes. Levi used that respite to focus on other events: the hurdles, the sprints. The whispers eventually died down as others went to focus on their own regimens. For a while, Levi wondered why he was self conscious in the first place. Before that, he had never really bothered with what everybody else was doing in training. 

_It's amazing. The amount of balance, core strength and body control to keep your body flexible enough not to hit the bar. The amount of leg strength needed to jump that high. You really must be superhuman._

His best event had always been the high jump. That was why Hange had wanted to work with him in the first place. As Levi reflected on it, he started to realize everyone being disappointed was a painful reminder that with his inability to break his previous records, he would also be disappointing Hange. 

As usual, Levi stayed thirty minutes after practice to attempt the high jump multiple times, finding solace in the fact at least that everyone had left for their first classes that day. After failing every single time, Levi walked back to the bench. He deliberately put more weight on his right knee, a silent yet angry protest against the scab that had made it impossible to completely extend his knee. 

He checked his phone. **8:30.** His first class was at 10. 

Below the time, he saw Hange had left a few messages, all pictures and links according to the banners on his phone. Levi went to settings and turned off the notifications.

A mini game and a well-deserved punishment for himself. 

_If I can’t meet her expectations, I won’t talk to her until the weekend._

That weekend was when they were slated to meet again. He had five days to jump it. 

* * *

******  
**

He didn’t last long.

By the next morning, Levi had given up already on leaving the notifications off. He ended up checking her messages anyway even with the notifications turned off. Declaring that move in particular redundant, Levi turned on notifications and read through all the messages Hange had sent. 

They were links to different jumps, the lutz, the toe loop, the salchow, the axel, the loop and the flip. They all looked the same to Levi. The only one that looked any different was the axel he had tried in the oval a few days ago. The rest of the messages were just a long explanation on different figure skating jumps. It was a long rant, with too many terms that even Levi wasn’t aware of. 

That was when Levi realized, she may be hard to forget but she was easy to ignore. Especially since he had better things to do than listen to her rant, like train or study. 

Levi moved the goalposts of his little game. _I’ll open Hange’s messages but I won’t reply until I clear the jump._

By Friday, things were starting to look a little more hopeful. The scab on his knee was starting to peel off. The skin underneath looked a little raw but not at all alarmingly discolored. As he prepared for training that night, he did a few experimental bounces and a few warm up stretches. The raw skin underneath was still resisting the stretches.

“Looks like your wound is looking a little better. You ready to show me your jump?” Greg spoke from behind him. 

_Was he even ready to jump?_ Although he had busied himself the past few days practicing it, it was far from something he would be ready to show his coach. In fact, he had not even cleared the two meters at all. As his mind raced for excuses or just the best possible answer to that question, Levi was also reminded of the dull aches and pains all over his body. 

He had busied himself that week jumping six hours a day, three hours early in the morning and three hours at night. Exhaustion was something that he was easily able to brush off having grown up an athlete. Fatigue was a different story. Fatigue is a specter that haunts, no matter how healthy, well trained or toned its victim is.

Maybe that was where the hopefulness came from. His body had somehow gotten a little numb and insensible to aches and pains that when the scab had finally fallen enough, he had assumed he would be able to fully extend his leg when necessary. As he ran towards the bar and launched himself up in the air, the scar tissue underneath fought, pulling against his leg. The scar tissue was tight, it was taught and as Levi fell back on the cushion, the bar next to him, Levi could only slam his hand on the bar in frustration. 

“Hey, if you’re having trouble we could lower the bar first.” 

“No. I just need time to get used to it.” Levi said. A straight-up lie but at that point, Levi didn’t realize it himself. 

He did not expect his next few jumps to be chaotic. The bar was falling down next to him more violently every time. A few times it rattled. One time it flew a few meters away. Levi only ever allowed himself a split second to watch the bar react to the force of his jumps before he mechanically got back up again. 

His movements had to be mechanical. His head was spinning, his mind was racing. At that moment, he could have attributed his inability to clear it to anything. His stomach was turning. His legs were screaming, his body was aching from constantly hitting the cushion at full force. 

He found himself having to catch his breath as he stepped back into the starting line. From his peripherals he could see Elijah running towards the adjacent bar. As soon as he jumped though, Levi had to look away. As guilty it made him feel, Levi still hoped he would hear the sound of metal on metal and the bar clattering on the ground. 

Silence, the sound of a body hitting the cushion then cheers. 

Levi glanced at the bar Elijah just cleared to see it was set at two meters as well. Levi found himself dashing towards his own bar before getting his bearings. 

He had gone through the same positions for as long as he could remember. It should have been easy. Ironically, Levi found himself more self conscious about how he was supposed to be running as he pictured the speed and the movement at which Elijah had done it from his peripherals. Elijah was a foot taller than him and somehow he knew he had to compensate. He ran faster than necessary, jumped higher than necessary and he curled his body towards the ground at a more dangerous angle as he landed. 

The last part was the most dangerous part of the jump. 

“Levi!”

Levi only had a split second to react as his head was falling straight towards the ground at an alarming speed. The reflexes that had gotten him to every training and the intuition that had built over the years was enough though and Levi was able to curl his upper body forward, enough to avoid breaking his neck. The speed at which he fell on the cushion though and the way he had bounced and skidded violently on the cushion beneath him brought about an exploding pain on his back and for a second Levi actually thought he broke his back.

As much as he wanted to forget everything and focus on the sky above him, he knew he had to take stock of his injuries. That was the first time he had ever fallen like that. Hell, that was the first time he had ever feared the worse from an injury. 

He tested them one by one. His legs were moving like they should. His arms too. Most importantly, there was no pain as he moved his neck from side to side. The pain was all over his back though and Levi was sure that at the least, he had bruised his back badly. 

“You’re done for the day.” 

“I can try one more.” How many times did he jump? Levi was sure at least not ten. He could have done at least twenty more. 

“ _I_ _said you’re done for the day.”_ His coach’s tone was something new, the sound of someone scrambling for authority and yet it succeeded. 

Levi could not argue. As he walked painfully back to the bench he started to notice the crowd that had gathered next to his training area. He wondered how scary the fall must have looked for a crowd to have gathered nearby and for his coach to have spoken to him like that. 

As he sat on the bench, the world started to spin. Levi rested his hand to his forehead only to realize his hand was shaking. 

“Hey. Will you at least let me look over your bruises? I just want to make sure nothing is broken.” 

Levi found himself fighting back tears. Her voice came as a pleasant surprise yet at the same time, it was the last thing he wanted to hear. 

“Why are you here?” 

"I just wanted to make sure you were still alive." Hange joked. "You didn't reply to any of my messages."

"I was busy."

"Looks like it."

She went behind him. Levi felt a shudder spider through him as she put her hands on his shoulders. 

"Does it hurt?"

Levi could only shake his head. It wasn't pain. Was it surprise? Embarrassment? Either way, it was enough to make Levi sit up a little straighter. 

“You cleared the bar at least," Hange said. 

"I did?" If Levi wasn't too surprised at the sudden revelation, he probably would have noted the pain as Hange ran her hands around his upper back. At any rate, it was light enough that Levi completely forgot it as he focused on the untouched bar. 

_The one he flew over only a second ago._ Levi allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction, small enough that if anyone saw it, he could easily pretend it never happened. 

"Looks like there's nothing broken. But it feels like there's some bruising. Make sure to ice it." 

"When I get back to the dorm," Levi answered. He stifled a wince as he felt her fingers climb up his shoulder. 

"You have some friction burns around your upper back," Hange explained. "Hey, if you're not up to doing the tests tomorrow, it's fine."

"No, we're pushing through with tomorrow."

"But you're not looking so good. Something tells me that was the only jump you cleared this week."

Levi did not answer. 

"Your movements were wilder, chaotic, uncoordinated. Not like the Levi who jumped in the championships." Her tone was playful but to Levi, it sounded like she was mocking him. "Maybe if you read my messages, it would help."

Levi unlocked his phone and opened her messages. He had cleared the jump at least and that was his prize. 

"Do you see it?" Hange asked after a few minutes. 

Hange's rant was long enough to make Levi's phone lag. Levi blacked out in frustration, not bothering to close read beyond what was right in front of him. A long winded list of the differences between skating jumps and why Hange liked the Axel in particular the best then the Lutz, then the Loop. 

"Just say it." 

"I noticed when we did the preliminary testing that you get most of your power from your legs." Hange sat next to Levi and look pointedly at his legs. "You're lucky they're strong enough to carry you over the bar. When you're doing a two meter bar, and your legs are slightly injured though, I'm guessing a lot can throw you off. Especially since you generally don’t get much height over the bars when you clear them. 

"What does this have to do with skating jumps?"

"If you read why I like the Axel so much as a jump you'd know." Hange looked at him expectantly. 

Her eyes were like that of a two month old puppy and Levi felt utterly trapped. Trapped enough at least to read what she had sent him. 

_An axel jump requires one of the most complex coordinated movements. It's a forward facing jump with no support from a toe pick and little support from a backward rotation._

"So where do you get the power from?" Hange continued. 

Levi tensed up. He hadn't noticed that Hange settled on the bench right next to him, having leaned close enough to look over his shoulder and at his phone. 

"The hips. The arms. I actually just realized it yesterday but you don't utilize your arms much when you jump, or your hips when you twist. If you did, it _could_ add more power to your jump. Maybe that could fix your jumping problem..." 

"Maybe." Levi answered half heartedly, too occupied by the videos Hange had sent to even come up with something more responsive. He had heard what she said but had found it difficult to comprehend from explanation alone. It turned out he had needed something a little more visual and watching the Russian skater in a purple dress go smoothly through the motions of a triple axel made everything much clearer. 

He was a track and field athlete and she was a figure skater. But somehow the basic movements were the same, pushing the hips back before thrusting them forward. Moving the hands back before jumping up. Those were the body equivalents of pulling back the leather pad a slingshot before letting go, to further amplify the force of the leg as it pushes the body up and into the air. 

And Hange had picked up all the similarities without ever playing any of the sports. It was amazing but at the same time amusing. 

"What do you think? Should we try it?" Hange asked.

Levi paused for a moment, taking stock of his situation. His legs were aching and his body was going numb from what could have been exhaustion. He was even starting to reconsider the preliminary tests scheduled for the next day. "We could try it next week." Levi suggested.

It was odd when Hange had stopped talking but Levi did not really think too much about it. That was until he looked up at her. Hange's face was frozen in awe and wonder, as if she was in a daydream. Her eyes were shining yet at the same time, concentrated on one particular object. 

Levi only had to follow her line of sight to realize what it was. Picking it out among the crowd of students in the oval was easy. After all, all the athletes had their attention on Elijah who was already picking himself up from the cushion by the time Levi had followed her line of sight to that point. 

The crowd exploded into applause. Levi looked back to see Hange was clapping herself, her eyes not moving from the center of the track.

Levi was quick to change his mind after seeing just that. "Hey, four eyes. Let's try it out after training." 

* * *

It was not odd at all for Levi to stay after training. He was used to it. That night though, he had to sit back and wait for the field to clear before he went back to the place where his bar stood. He waited thirty minutes just in case.

Hange did not have to explain much. She helped polish his form but Levi had his own instinct and his own experience to fill in the gaps.

He did a few light test jumps with the bar set lower, taking note of the freedom of movement that came with the extra thrust of his hips and the extra burst of force which came with having his arm movements pull the jump further upwards. 

"Just one jump," Hange said, a worried frown on her face. 

He did not need to guess what Hange was seeing. His legs were aching and he was struggling to take deeper breaths.

 _Last jump of the night._ Levi assured himself. He then promised his body one weekend off if he made it. He stood on the starting point again for a few seconds, starting long and hard at the bar set two feet high in front of him. 

The arm movements and the hip twists were not unfamiliar. Just like the sensation of launching himself up in the air, the tightening of his muscles and the bending of his back to get over the bar, they were all muscle memory. Where exactly Levi had gotten it, he did not know. Either way, he had won championships with leg power alone. With a lack of opponents, there was no need to improve his technique and he had stuck to using his legs. 

Somehow, Hange's suggestion had awakened a new facet of his muscle memory. 

Levi ran towards the two meter high bar, making sure to take note of the sensation in his hips and the untapped power in his arm. He positioned himself to launch in the air and in that split second, he did not need to consider where the power came from. Running towards the bar had contributed its own share of momentum and as Levi positioned himself for the jump, his arms had gone mechanically behind his back for a second. 

_That's where the power is from._ Levi realized. He jumped up and noted the thrust of his hip as he twisted himself to a position where his back would be facing the bar. That was where the power from the hips came into play. 

Levi was flying. At the same time, he was speeding up. 

It should have been a perfect jump. In fact Levi had made some good height between him and the bar below him. If he were going any slower and had the luxury to look to the side he could have seen Hange's look of awe, her mouth agape and her eyes shining in pure excitement. 

Levi though had other thoughts. His body was too preoccupied with something else. 

Only less than an hour ago, Levi had almost broken his neck with a jump of a much lower speed and a lower height. Although Levi had quickly forgotten it, his body remembered. And when he was a good two and a half feet up in there his body decided to remind him of that particular memory of less than an hour ago. 

Suddenly, Levi was terrified. He found himself fighting for some kind of control mid air. The sound of crash of metal hitting flesh then an explosion of pain. 

That pain could have been accompanied by another as Levi landed awkwardly on the cold hard ground of the track. Everything he had felt up there in the air though was overwhelming enough and Levi found himself unable to isolate the pain or even trace its origins. 

With the little energy and control he could muster, Levi turned his head to look above him. He didn't break his neck at least.

The dark blue sky stretched out in all directions and somewhere above him, he heard the distant screaming from a voice he had come to know so well. 

_Levi! Can you hear me…_ _I can't deal with this on my own. I'm gonna have to call for help._


	6. Chapter 6

Every morning even before he opens his eyes completely, Levi would reach for his phone on the side table. 

His first connection to reality was always the time written out on the lock screen of the phone and the blue light on his screen as he checked all his notifications. He never remembered when exactly he had gotten into the habit of doing just that. Regardless, the clean interface and the clusters of notifications on real life topics and class announcements were effective ways to forget whatever dreams he may have had the night before and focus on real life obligations and responsibilities. 

That morning was a little different. As he motioned his right hand that familiar distance from bed to side table, he found a barricade in the form of a metal bar and as he maneuvered his hand beyond it, all he felt was air and a wall. Levi opened his eyes to his left to see the sky just outside, a familiar mix of purple and pink.

That was at least enough for him to conclude that it was probably around six in the morning. With no quick fixes of gratification, Levi found himself taking stock of whatever was at hand. He allowed himself a long look at the sky, long enough for the blue to start peeking through and the light be enough for the room to illuminate enough for Levi to be able to make sense of his surroundings without the help of artificial light. 

Levi slowly sat up. It was the white covers and the white ceilings that clued him to it first. The IV attached to his arm came second. Then Levi was suddenly aware of the weight on his left knee, the dull pain and the bindings. 

He sighed and threw himself back down on the bed, wincing as the immobilized leg protested that rough movement. His mind was racing. Memories were starting flooding back to him much faster than he could connect the dots to what was in front of him at that moment. The white ceiling kept all the stimuli at a more manageable level at least. 

If everything had gone according to Levi’s expectations, that Saturday morning, Levi should have been on the train to meet Hange. His anticipation at meeting Hange had him planning every intricate detail. As he looked up at the clear slate above him, he imagined the quick jog to the station that should have been reality if he hadn't been so careless the night before. 

Everything after crashing on to the ground was a blur. It was as if the searing pain then the numbness on his left knee had interfered with his ability to process the world around him. 

He remembered Hange talking to him, but not what she was saying. Soon after, there was a stretcher then sirens.

His grasp of the world around him only got worse as he arrived in the hospital and they hooked him up to an IV. The rest of it was blank save for a few loud voices, the moving of the gurney from one room to another. his coach's voice, Erwin's voice and Hange's voice. 

As Levi contemplated his situation that morning, he couldn't help but ruefully note as well that at his current state, he probably wouldn't be able to even manage the lighter tests Hange had wanted him to do that day. 

_I’ll only find out more if I get out of here._

Levi pulled the blanket off. _How bad was it?_ Over his knee was a piece of thick cloth or possibly layers of it, held together with velcro on top. As Levi swung his legs to the side of the bed. He could not help but note how unnaturally heavy his casted leg was. 

The prospect of placing his bad leg on the floor and the uncertainty of what kind of injury he had sustained, had Levi scrambling for support. Within seconds, he found himself, hopping awkwardly on his good leg while leaning on both the hospital walls and the IV pole as he made his way to the door of the room.

He never really found out how long it took him to make the few meter journey to the door of his hospital room. The frustration at the unfamiliarity of his situation only had him disregarding time. To him, it felt like ages. He had stopped a few times and leaned on the wall, his head spinning from exhaustion, fear or maybe even the medicine they had been pumping him with since last night. On the way to the entrance, he did not notice the door that had silently opened and only realized someone had entered the room when they were right beside him already. 

“You shouldn’t be standing...” It was one of the voices from last night. Fortunately, it was the one he felt most comfortable hearing. 

_Hange should know everything._ “What happened last night?” Levi spared not time asking that question. 

“Let’s get you back in bed first.” Hange seemed like she was in no hurry to tell him. Her movements were slow as she wrapped his arm around her shoulders and guided him to a position where he was barely putting any weight on the floor beneath him. 

As soon as Hange had made sure he was settled on the bed, her pace suddenly quickened as she turned on the lights of the room, pulled out his phone from the drawer, placed it on his side table, pulled a chair to his bedside and sat on it. “I can’t stay for long actually. I have to go to campus, do some work in the lab. If you need anything important… You’re covered at least by the insurance plans....” 

_If you need anything important from your dorm, you better tell me now…_ That was the last sentence Levi had made sense of. Hange turned on the lights and the gravity of Levi’s injuries became clearer. The bruises and the abrasions on his knees and hands were raw and fresh. Some of the worse ones had been bandaged up. He had gotten those same injuries before but having been an athlete for a long time, those were easily brushed away and he had mistaken the aches for stronger and more painful manifestations of exhaustion. He could not tell from then but his back had that same familiar ache, maybe even a little stronger. 

“Levi, listen.” Hange put her hand on his, catching his attention. I know you’re probably angry with me… And you probably don’t want to see my face anymore. Just allow me to help you get settled at least and I’ll get off your back and you’ll never have to see me again.”

“Never see you again?” Somehow those words hit harder and rang more painfully in his ears than the rest of his injuries. That was when Levi noticed the small signs: Hange’s back was a little straighter, she kept herself a little more distant and even the way she placed her hand on his was more hesitant. In fact, it was back on her lap as soon as he had processed that action on her end. 

It was as if they were back to where they started. 

“I’ve gotten these types of injuries before. I’ll just ice them, forget about them and go back to training,” Levi assured. In the end though, it was more for himself than for her. Levi looked to Hange and although he had hoped for a smile and a nod in agreement, he wasn’t surprised when she looked towards his legs, keeping a sullen face. 

Hange shook her head. “ I saw what happened. You hit your knee on the bar pretty hard then you fell at an awkward angle.” For a moment, Hange looked dumbfounded as if she was replaying it all again in her head. “I don’t know how bad it is yet but they had to temporarily set it last night. You were in a lot of pain…”

“Then they’ll prescribe pain killers.” He was probably on some pain relievers already. 

“You don’t get it do you? This competition season is out of the question. Hell, your whole career is probably out of the question.” Hange looked away. “And it’s my fault.” 

He should have been angrier at Hange. 

The way she had explained it, from when he had fallen on the hurdles, her shitty stitching skills which could have delayed the healing process, all the way to encouraging him to change his form, his injury could have been traced back to her. It was still a long shot though. In the end it had been Levi’s decision and he was completely aware of that. 

_Would he have tried that hard? Would he have taken all those risks if he hadn’t met her?_ He was sure that it was at least possible to twist logic and delude himself into thinking it was her fault. The Levi of a month ago would have done just that. At that moment, when he put two and two together though, surprisingly, he felt no anger. In fact he felt nothing. 

It could have been from shock or confusion. It was as if for a second Levi had forgotten how to feel. Hange left the room as silently as she had entered with a quick reminder to just send it through chat. 

Levi wrote it out as coldly and professionally as it was requested and sent it before locking his phone and placing it back on the side table. 

For the first time in how many years, he did not even have the energy to look through his phone.

* * *

The emptiness he felt festered to something else with each and every test they put him through that morning. 

Every nurse and every intern who wheeled him from room to room and did the tests always had something to ask. They asked about training, records and tournaments. 

_How he had learned to jump so high. How he had polished his form so well. How he maintained consistency with every attempt._

Suddenly they were theorizing the injury. 

_You probably hit your leg hard on the bar while it was extended... Landing awkwardly from that height is more than enough to dislocate your knee._

Their tones were kind as if to make light of the situation he was currently in. They had done the complete opposite though and with every test and every conversation, Levi was forced to face his emotions head on, the future that awaited him.

And Hange. _What was Hange planning?_

He had sprained his ankle before but that was the first time he had experienced such comprehensive testing for one limb. They had explained the tests as they went about it: mobility tests, nerve tests, vascular tests all for his left knee.

As they rambled on and on about him, Levi found himself thinking of the only tests that had mattered to him, the ones Hange would ramble about. 

She wanted to test his vertical jump, his horizontal jump, the power in his legs, the strength. He was miserably failing every test the therapists were throwing at him. Putting minimal weight was enough for Levi to realize that his knee was fucked. Just a small movement was enough for his left knee to buckle under him. Levi wondered how less than 24 hours ago, he had managed to use that leg to jump two feet in the air. 

By the time Levi had arrived back in the room, his lunch was waiting for him on the table by his bed. He pushed it aside, instead going for his phone. 

_Multiple Ligament Injuries._ That was what one of the nurses had casually mentioned.

Levi found himself digging up all the way until scientific journals. He had wanted to see the words cure, recovery and heal but all he found were outlooks and prognoses. 

_9-12 months of no physical activity. Pain and stiffness his whole life._ There was no direct cure. There were no straightforward answers, only arguments and well thought-out opinions on treatment plans. 

The details were in and out of his brain within seconds after he read them. If they differed for every case, there really was no point in memorizing or even trying to set his expectations. He had spent the whole morning in chairs and in bed but somehow, Levi was exhausted. He opened his phone to the different chat groups. Others had asked about him. 

He only composed two messages that day as replies to the tens or even hundreds of notifications. One to his parents and one to his coach. 

_Don’t visit.._ Was he ashamed? Was he exhausted? Terrified? Confused? Levi could not pinpoint the exact feeling but somehow his body felt heavy and the only thing he wanted to do was roll over and sleep.

He had managed not to cry but for a few minutes he was blinking back tears. 

* * *

_ACL, MCL, LCL._ A string of letters recognized from the internet. 

The doctor had given the meanings of those acronyms as he explained them. Levi was quick to forget them though, there were more important things than that. Like who was explaining it to him and what exactly the injury meant for him. _Or for Hange._

The doctor that had taken over his case was Erwin. The last time Levi had seen him, he had been in a civilian wear. The blonde wore a white coat over his polo and dress pants as he stood next to Levi’s bed side, looking more powerful and more authoritative than he did back in the laboratory.

As he talked, Levi felt no need to listen. Erwin after all was only confirming the fears and the doubts that were running through Levi’s brains. 

_This season is out of the question. Reconsider whatever plans you may have as an athlete._

_What about Hange’s research?_ Levi had wanted to ask. It just did not seem right then, as Erwin continued to explain the prognosis.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Erwin said as if he hadn’t been honest with Levi the past few minutes. “There’s no right way to go about this. Knee injuries are pretty complex and the treatment I’m suggesting now is just my own opinion. It’s probably even a gamble.” 

_All medical advice is just someone’s professional and educated opinion._ Levi was quick to figure that out when he had read the abstracts of articles, discussion evaluations, prognoses and never exact cures for his own injury.

It was at that moment that Erwin mentioned the gamble that Hange had entered the hospital room with Levi’s overnight bag slung over her shoulder. She was looking down and from his angle, her face was unreadable. 

Erwin had mentioned surgery and strict physical therapy afterwards. With Levi graduating that year, it meant he was out of the running for collegiate championships anyway.

 _But if it works out, maybe, just maybe he could go back to jumping._ And somehow, Levi realized just the movements he had gotten used to and the sensations they had allowed him to experience, actually made him consider the gamble worth taking even if it was a longshot. Only a small percentage of the population actually regained full control of their knee after a devastating injury like that.

“Shouldn’t he wait a few months before getting the surgery?” Hange suggested. “I’ve read some articles about it before…”

“There’s some damage in his nerves and in his vascular system which needs to be addressed soon if he wants to gain control of his knee. If we divide this into multiple stages, Levi will be back to square one after every surgery. It will only delay the healing process.”

Hange kept quiet. For a moment, everyone in the room was silent. 

Erwin spoke up. “Hange’s not wrong. There are more conservative ways to go about treatment. In the end, it’s up to you whether you want to listen to me or request a second opinion. I’ll wait for your answer in the morning.” He turned to Hange. “And Hange, we’re going to have to talk about your plans for your thesis. First thing Monday morning in the lab.”

“What’s your plan?” Levi asked. Since Erwin left the room, Hange had been standing too awkwardly in the middle of the room, looking uncomfortable at the turn of events. _How much had she heard?_

“What’s _your_ plan? Erwin always has a good reason for everything but… I’ve seen articles about rushing into this surgery and I’m just unsure about it,” Hange said. “To be honest, no matter what happens, these types of injuries don’t leave people and if you’re going to live with it for the rest of your life, might as well not risk something so unnecessary?” 

“Hange, answer me first what’s your plan?” Levi had stopped listening at “but.” He was already dead set on getting the surgery anyway. Somehow he knew, Erwin’s gambles were never baseless. 

_I’ll get off your back and you’ll never have to see me again._ Those words only echoed again in his head as he focused on the panicked look Hange was giving him at that moment.

“My plan on what?” Hange asked.

 _You’ll never have to see me again._ Levi had realized even before they had met that afternoon that her thesis was the only thing that had kept them talking and contacting each other. _With that gone, what next?_

Levi found himself scrambling for excuses, for a reason to see her. “Your thesis.” You heard Erwin, I’m gone for the next nine months or probably even the next few years. Are you going back to Elijah? Are you gonna find some _other_ athlete to study?” It was unintentional but Levi heard the venom in his own voice.

Hange gave Levi a wry smile. “I haven’t decided yet. But I’m planning on talking to my parents and ----”

“I’m not asking what your parents plans are. I’m asking about _your_ plans.” Levi interrupted. 

“They’re paying for my tuition, for my home. I at least wanna get their approval for something as heavy as what will be my graduation. Besides, It’s not just about my parents, I have to consider Erwin…”

Levi slammed his fists on the bed in frustration. The Hange in front of him was avoiding his gaze, as if looking to find an answer elsewhere, maybe on the white walls or the tiled floors. That was not the Hange he knew. Hange knew how to make decisions on a fly, hell, Hange was a squad leader. She was the commander of an army. Suddenly for the first time, it felt like he was talking to a completely different person. Levi felt duped. 

“ _Your plans Hange,”_ Levi emphasized. “What kind of crapsack household did you grow up in that you can’t make decisions for yourself. Your research is your decision. Relying on someone else to make decisions? That's not the Hange I know.”

Hange shook her head looking dumbfounded. “Why are you talking about me like you’ve met me before? What do you know about me? Or my home? We’ve only been talking for a month.” Hange paused for a while, avoiding his gaze. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not angry. I’m just curious. I mean, as far as I remember we only started talking a few weeks ago back in the track. I’m flattered really because I’ve been following you for a long while but, why are you so invested in my plans?” 

_Why are you so invested in her?_ Levi looked away as he felt the blood rushing into his face. “It’s just that… I guess...This is just not the Hange I expected you to be.” He managed to say. 

In the end, a voice still lingered inside him, a voice saying that there was some truth to his silent expectations for who Hange should have been. 

* * *

A few days later, on a Tuesday morning, Levi did have the surgery.

On the days leading up to it, he was alone. Hange had told him then, that she would be spending Sunday with her family, Monday in the lab. 

There was a nagging feeling inside him that Hange was avoiding him. It could have been paranoia. There wasn’t much to think about after all. His unchanging view the next few days leading up to the surgery were the white ceilings and the white walls of his room, decorated with a few visits from a nurse and the hospital meals which at least had some variety in appearance but little variety in taste.

He had finished most of his schoolwork by Monday afternoon and even finished the readings for the three classes he was taking that semester. Soon, there was nothing much to do but look through his phone. 

By Monday night, he was told by the nurse that he wouldn’t be served any dinner in preparation for the surgery. 

By Tuesday afternoon, Levi was making sense again of the white walls and the white ceilings, the sky through the window that was all too bright, and the smell of flowers. 

_The smell of flowers._

“You know Levi, I was thinking of something…” 

Levi looked towards his bedside to see Hange sitting there and behind her, flowers sitting on a vase, a simple arrangement. 

“We’re taught that humans are at the top of the ecological hierarchy and at the top of the food chain. We’re apparently the greatest creations. But, we’re so easy to maim or injure for life” Hange said, as if she hadn’t been avoiding him the past few days. “Flowers can grow from stem cuttings. They can patch themselves up even after we pull out the flowers or some of the leaves. But you sprain your ankle once and it’s never the same ankle again.”

“Why are you here?” Levi asked, as soon as he finally had control of his voice. He didn’t want to play along.

“For a visit.” Hange said matter of factly. 

“You said I wouldn’t have to see you again.” Levi challenged. Hange trying to lighten the mood with random conversation had left a bad taste in his mouth. He regretted his words though soon after he saw the slight wince she made. 

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve been thinking about my thesis. And I talked to my parents about it…”

“I told you before, I want your decision, not theirs.” 

“Yes, if you had let me finish last Sunday instead of being angry, I would have told you. _I’m_ making the final call. I just want to consult,” Hange said, looking exasperated. “ I have funding, tuition, time and logistics to consider and I’m back to square one. I don’t live on an island, Levi. Just because you can live in one, doesn’t mean everyone can.”

She was right. Somehow, the way she had said it, the way she had explained herself was convincing enough for Levi to realize that the Hange he knew was still inside her. Levi felt his stomach drop in embarrassment at his immature outburst rooted in the frustration he had felt. He wanted to look away from Hange as she narrowed her eyes at him, looking at him expectedly.

 _What’s your plan?_ Levi had hidden how he felt behind a veil of a casual conversation, behind a fundamentally neutral question. At that point, he had given up. For three days, just bringing up such a vague question was not giving him the answers he wanted. 

"Then what’s going to happen to us?” Levi asked. “I mean, we won’t have much reason to see each other after this.” 

“I don’t know yet. I’ve been wanting to do this type of thesis for a while so it’s gonna be hard to change.” Hange admitted. 

That confirmation was all he needed. _Am I being selfish?_ Levi had to make the conscious effort to stop himself. In a perfect world, he would have wanted her to adjust, to find a way to work with his current limitations. He had held on to a hope that somehow she would suggest something to keep them talking, keep them seeing each other. 

Suddenly, the rest of the things he would have wanted to open up about were all taboo. 

If Hange were to change her topic for him, if she were to do anything just because he suggested it, he was sure he wouldn’t be satisfied with it. . At the same time, just imagining that phantom athlete doing the jumps for her, recalling how Hange had been left speechless watching Elijah’s jump, how she had stood up and clapped her hands slowly then quickly had Levi’s heart racing and his head spinning. His human inhibitions, as weak as they were at that moment, were the only thing stopping himself from begging her to stay, hell, from demanding that she considers him when making her decision. 

Levi turned his eyes towards the white ceiling above him, a futile effort to clear his mind. As his inhibitions and desires waged a war in his head, he couldn’t even grasp for a reply, an emotion to articulate.

Hange took the initiative. “Levi, I want to ask you something…” She started. “Do you still want to see my face? After everything that happened?”

Levi gave a small nod, the only movement he could manage without letting out a wave of emotion. 

“Then I’ll consider that when I make my decision.” At least she noticed it.

* * *

It was Erwin who had informed him of Hange’s decision. 

Since Hange had visited that Tuesday, she never did come back. Levi had convinced himself at least to accept that that Tuesday afternoon would be the last time he saw her. 

Wednesday afternoon, Erwin visited, informing Levi that he would be released from the hospital that Friday. Levi found himself almost ecstatic at the news. The white room was depressing. He never did get comfortable or familiar with the hard mattress beneath him and the barriers of the hospital bed. 

“Also, Hange sends her apologies. She’s been busy working on a new proposal this week,” Erwin added. 

“A new proposal?”

“A thesis proposal,” Erwin clarified. “She had to do everything from scratch, so she’s been spending a lot of time in the library.” 

“She changed her topic?” It was a question of confirmation for himself. Levi noted then that most students could only access online journals for free using campus wifi. An oddly comforting fact which at least justified their lack of interaction the past two days and consequently, quelled his doubts.. 

Erwin nodded. “She told me a few days ago.” 

“Why?” Levi felt guilty for the wave of relief that washed through him.

“Why what?” 

“Why did she change it?” For a second he was happy. As quickly as it came, that bout of joy morphed into guilt. 

“I'm her thesis mentor, not the one who makes the final decision.” 

* * *

By Friday, Levi was at least independent enough to do the packing he had been raring to do himself since that weekend. 

To be able to maneuver quickly and efficiently on crutches though, Levi had spent a good chunk of Thursday learning how to maneuver his way around with the crutches he was prescribed. By that day at least, as he cleaned out the dresser and packed his stuff, he had enough skill to balance on one crutch while emptying the dresser or dragging one of the chairs to his bedside without putting any weight on his bum knee. 

Late Friday afternoon, Hange was the one who picked him up. It was no surprise, she offered to take him back to campus only that morning. 

They exchanged pleasantries and after that, Hange did all the talking. Somehow she understood that after having spent a good morning cleaning out the room, Levi was exhausted. He probably could have fallen asleep on the taxi ride on the way back to the dorm if Hange hadn’t been so loud and the taxi hadn’t been so cramped. 

“You sure you don’t need someone to take you up?” Hange had taken his bag from the backseat and slung it over her shoulder as they arrived at the entrance of their dormitory.

“It’s fine.” Levi knew she meant well but her initiative to take the bag before he could even attempt to carry it was insulting. 

Despite her insistence, Levi forcefully took the bag with his right hand, keeping his good knee heavily planted on the ground. He swayed a bit as he balanced his weight with his overnight bag slung on one shoulder. 

“Just tell me when you give up.” 

Levi looked away as he said that. He didn’t know what face she was making as she said that but he opted not to look to save himself whatever exasperation or stress it would have caused him. Instead, he focused on trying --yet failing -- to gain as much distance as he could as he hobbled into the dormitory building. 

He was disappointed to see that Hange did not follow.

 _I can always thank her later._ Another excuse to text her at least. He had other things he wanted to ask her like what had made her decide to change her thesis. More importantly, what did that mean for him? 

At that point in time though, he had more important things to think about like the fact that his room was on the second floor. 

It was late afternoon on a Friday meaning most students were out, while others were cooped up in their rooms already and the hallways were empty. He probably wouldn’t have asked for help anyway. In fact, he was relieved to see nobody had seen him stare at the stairs for a good few minutes.

Although he had spent most of yesterday learning to move with crutches, nothing had prepared him for stairs. 

He hobbled back towards the lobby where there were at least a few places to sit. If he were going to be thinking of a next plan of action which would be less embarrassing than asking for help, he concluded it would be better if he didn’t expend energy balancing on crutches. 

As it turned out, Hange hadn’t left. Levi found her leaning by the entrance of the dorm with a knowing smile on her face. An annoying and mocking smile. An “I told you so,” in the form of a subtle gesture. 

Levi was annoyed for a split second, a little peeved. The initial feelings were quickly washed away though by the wave of relief that followed.

He was just glad to see her there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written enough and have a clear ending in my head already so I'm sure I could release something every Saturday.
> 
> Anyway, if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading. I'd be happy to receive some feedback.  
> (I'm also on tumblr under the same name for anyone who just wants to fangirl with me. )


	7. Chapter 7

“So you’re Levi Ackerman?” The woman who had just entered the room looked excited. Too excited.

After being kept waiting that long, Levi was in no mood for anything, especially unnecessary pleasantries. For the past thirty minutes at least, he had been sitting on the couch of a quaint office. It was spacious and there was at least enough room on the couch to elevate his knee comfortably. Probably the reason he had the self control to give a curt nod in reply.

“I’m a fan! I watched a few of your events actually and I’m so glad to have you here,” she said too enthusiastically. She paused for a second and shook her head. “No, I’m horrified about you being injured which caused you to end up here but I’m just really excited to get to know you.”

Levi didn’t feel the need to reply.

She walked to her desk and dropped her canvas bag before sitting on the couch in front of Levi. “Sorry for being a little late. I just came out from another meeting and went out to get something to eat after. Maybe I could give you my number and you could text me if you get here before I do.” She took a post-it out of her purse and scrawled a few numbers on it and slid it towards Levi.

_Shouldn’t you have my number?_ Somehow it was hard to believe that she was a counselor. “Name?” Levi asked.

“Shela. Just call me Shela.”

Levi had met those types of people before who go by nicknames. More often than not, he couldn’t blame them, usually they had a very old fashioned or embarrassing name behind it. He couldn’t believe someone as transparent or excitable as her who didn’t look like she had much control of her filter, would have issues about how embarrassing a name was though.

“I have a very old fashioned first name.” Shela added, only confirming Levi’s suspicions. “Shela… Sierra - Hotel - Echo - Lima - Alpha.”

Levi typed the name on his phone and saved the number.

_Last Name? Academic History?_ He set the rest of the details aside. As long as he knew her name, he could probably get through enough sessions to at least keep both his coach and Erwin satisfied. Going to a counselor was not his idea after all. It was his coach apparently who had requested it and it was Erwin who had pushed for it. Without twice a day training or even the freedom to go wherever he wanted without being completely exhausted within hours, Levi had not much of anything else to do anyway.

Shela brought out a notebook from her purse, opened it to a bookmark paged and wrote something on it before looking up at him. Levi couldn’t help but note that when she wasn’t looking ashamed or overly enthusiastic and she did look like she knew what she was doing.

“I’m going to skip the question of ‘what brings you here’ because I think we all know why you’re here.” She gestured her pen towards Levi’s leg. “Let’s start with something simple. How are you? How are you feeling today?”

“My knee hurts and I can’t train anymore. But I’m focusing on studies now so I think I’m doing okay.” He answered, having prepared that script in his head the thirty minutes he spent waiting for her.

“I’m not asking how you’re coping. I’m asking how you’re feeling today.” Shela’s piercing eyes were a beautiful shade of blue. The serious look she gave him then bore into him. In fact, it felt like it bore into his soul.

Despite the generally bad first impression she gave him, Levi was somehow convinced that she was qualified to do that type of work and his showing up there might turn out to be worth something after all. Levi found himself almost hypnotized by that look she gave him, a healthy mixture of concern, interest and professionalism.

Hiding and watching his words felt pointless and Levi found himself saying his answers as his brain came up with them.

* * *

The hospital where he was slated to have his next sessions was that same hospital he had stayed in a week ago. Conveniently, it was a five minute walk from where he had been staying since he got out of the hospital: Hange’s apartment.

_Just until I can walk up stairs._ Levi had told himself. There were many dormitories clustered around campus yet he had ended up staying in the least handicap friendly one. The first floor had a lobby and a common room and the actual bedrooms were only found at the second floor and the third floor. To top it all off, there was no elevator. He had to note though that it was an old building with only three floors so it would have been useless to put one.

He was on scholarship and it was assigned to him back in first year so he did not have much of a choice. He didn’t need to think too much of it either that past three years of college since he had never been injured enough to the point of being unable to climb stairs

With his leg completely immobilized and a deadweight, Levi was sure it would be a nightmare to brave that everyday. The paperwork and legwork required to change dormitories in the middle of the semester seemed daunting as well. In the end, Hange had offered to let him stay over in her apartment.

Her condominium was spacious, it had an elevator and it was walking distance from the hospital where he’d have both his counseling and physical therapy sessions.

_Walking Distance._ For non handicapped people, it should only take five minutes to walk the two block distance from the hospital to the apartment building. Levi took ten minutes to clear it and by the end of it he was exhausted and despite the chill of mid autumn, Levi found himself sweating as he arrived in the apartment.

It was a Friday afternoon, a week after he was released from the hospital. Nobody was pressuring him to go back to school yet. His professors had been kind enough to send him lecture slides and give him extensions. Some classmates had dropped their own summarized notes and get-well messages.

Levi settled on his bed and propped his knee on his pillow, looking through the lecture slides of his last class. Despite his self imposed week long isolation, Levi just wanted to go back to normal life.

_But it never will be normal again._ Although Levi did see a glimmer of hope in the possibility of feeling normal again when he went back to school, the realist in him knew it wouldn't happen.

Levi was supposed to be in the process of accepting at least that it would never be the “normal” he used to have and had taken for granted. Something inside him was rebelling the process though.

_If I can't live the life I want, then I won't live at all._ That something screamed inside him.

That form of rebellion left Levi with little energy for anything else. His mind was slower. His body was heavier. He was seeing little reason to move beyond the mechanical and primal movements needed to survive.

As if by magic, his body that used to carry him over two meter tall bars, suddenly felt like it weighed a ton. The weight crushed him everyday. At times Levi found himself unable to breathe. That was he found himself in that same position for sixteen hours a day, either sleeping or staring at the same white ceiling above him.

In fact, the only time he had left the Hange's apartment was for that one counseling session Hange had prodded him to go to. That was the only time she had forced him to go out of the house as if she herself understood somehow the comfort and at the same time the panic that came with a self imposed isolation.

_What else was there to do?_

He was alone. He had kept to his own bubble in college, only flitting between the two islands of academics and trainings.He was always either busy or exhausted and the lack of in-between had given him little time to reflect on the state of his mental health. And suddenly he had lost one of his islands, the bigger one, the one that had given him meaning the past few years. That had left him completely and utterly lost. Maybe even desolate.

That was what Shela had pointed out in their first counseling session as Levi attempted to articulate the emptiness inside him, the slight panic that came with idleness, the sudden need to turn off all message notifications and the frequent mood changes that came with Hange's entering and exiting the apartment.

And his weird dependence on Hange.

In between studying for his three subjects that semester and icing his bum knee, what else was there to do? Wait for Hange to come home? Talk to her during that one to two hour window when she wasn't working on her thesis? That was what his life had ended up revolving around anyway.

Levi found himself only replying to anything related to studies or graduating. He had received a few messages from others, suggestions to visit training, offers to visit from teammates and he had ignored them all. Somehow, the reminder of the loss of the one hobby that had kept him busy for the past decade of his life, was mocking. He became someone who waits, someone who just went with the flow of everyone's schedule. Having been busy his whole life, having been constantly needed and looked for and only recently, having been reduced to where he was, Levi felt his life was just a series of wrong choices, wrong choices that only formed a distrust with himself and consequently a refusal to engage in activity.

_What else am I supposed to be doing?_ Levi opened his laptop. For a moment he had tried to go through his school notes at Shela’s advice.

After less than an hour of halfheartedly reviewing his notes and forgetting it soon after, Levi had exhausted his already scarce energy. With nothing else to do, he had decided to move to scrolling through timelines which displayed little to no signs of real life obligations, pinterest and reddit to pass the time. Within an hour of just scrolling through both, he had gotten tired of it too. It was a new feeling. Usually he could drown himself in hours of social media and timelines but at that point, nothing was interesting to him anymore.

_Have you tried writing out how you feel?_ Shela’s suggestion echoed in his head. _Like maybe get a journal. It’s a great way to process your thoughts and emotions._

_What’s there to write._ Levi asked himself and Shela’s voice as it echoed in his head. Levi could only stare at the blank screen, his emotions too non-existent to write. The blank document he had opened in front of him was the best representation of his thoughts and emotions already.

_There are no right or wrong answers._ Shela had brought up another good point during their session.

_You think, therefore you are. You feel therefore you are. As long as you’re processing images, sounds and sensations, you’re thinking. You’re feeling something and you can write something down._

_Then why do I feel so empty?_ Levi had asked.

Shela had compared it to a false bottom. As he continued to stare at the blank page in front of him, Levi was starting to feel for that false bottom in his mind. It was a matter of discipline more than anything, determination to dig into one’s self.

It could have taken hours but as Levi looked at the time on his laptop, he realized much time hadn’t passed. In fact, the time to the lower right of his screen, was still the same. But Levi was starting to think differently.

He did have something to look back on. Stories he hadn’t thought back to in a while, having been occupied by training, Hange’s tests, studies and recoveries. They continued to taunt him in the mornings. With the magic of worldly obligations, Levi had managed to set them aside.

His motivations particularly lay in the fact that his world was a little bigger, he was talking to more people and the idea that these same people he was seeing were the same ones he’d been writing fictional stories for had him questioning his own sanity and had him a little self conscious about having those dreams in the first place.

At that moment though, his inability to think and feel beyond that false bottom had Levi more alarmed and he found himself attempting to articulate those dreams on the word processor just to experience a semblance of something.

Levi at least confirmed one thing, that bottom was false. And the more he articulated those dreams, the more they became real. He was starting to scrape on that false bottom and the first things that were oozing out were dreams. Somehow, the dreams were more vivid that he had ever remembered them to be. He felt almost guilty for having set them aside like some sort of fair weathered friend.

“Hey not bad! Is that homework?”

Levi tensed up in surprise. He should have been able to hear the familiar footsteps and the jangle of the keys from his place on the sofa bed. He never missed it once. Levi didn’t know if he should be proud that he had distracted himself enough not to consider Hange or terrified that she was right behind him at that moment, probably reading through his work.

He quickly closed his tab and looked at the time on the lower right. It was only five. Hange usually went home at seven.

“You’re early,” Levi commented.

“It’s my apartment. I can choose when to go home.” Hange answered. “Anyway what was that? Are you writing?”

“A journal,” Levi explained. There was not much point in lying.

“Did the counselor tell you to do that?”

“Yeah. Something about processing emotions and thoughts.”

“It’s a good exercise. Especially since you seemed pretty out of it recently...” Hange trailed off.

Levi looked back at her and noticed a flicker of what looked like guilt in Hange’s eyes before she looked away.

“Out of it?” Levi knew what she was talking about. He just felt the need to keep the conversation going.

“You spent the past weekend just lying in bed. I never even saw you look through your phone or open your laptop. ” Hange explained. “I’ve seen how these types of things develop so... So yeah, I’m just so happy to see you so focused on something else.”

“I don’t really have much else to get into other than school.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Hange said.

Levi bit his lip, instantly regretting that last sentence. Hange averaged two apologies a day which was a lot given the fact that they only ever had a two hour window to talk in between Levi’s long hours asleep and Hange’s long hours on campus.

“It wasn’t your fault. I was kinda going crazy too...With the jumping I mean.” He added. “And I was the one who decided to make that last jump in the first place. And now you have to change your whole thesis topic.”

“It wasn’t too difficult. Just one week building a new proposal. It’s still the same case study, it’s just I decided to document a recovery. Erwin’s unconventional methods with the recovery makes it worth documenting.”

“At least I’m still useful somewhere,” Levi commented wryly. Hange had explained the thesis to him over the weekend. He should have been relieved at least to know that they weren’t separating anytime soon. Surprisingly though, he wasn’t even happy to hear it. Everything around him just seemed too bleak to celebrate anything. Good news that used to make him smile and celebrate internally suddenly only made him feel a slight sense of relief, the equivalent emotion of seeing a wet floor sign in an area with slippery floors.

Hange sat on the sofa bed next to Levi and looked towards him. She took a deep breath. “I know with what’s been happening, it looks like you don’t have much going for you. And I know things seem pretty dark now but things will get better. You just have to keep living.”

“I’m still breathing.”

“You know what I mean,” Hange said. “When I get up in the morning you’re asleep. When I get back we talk for an hour and half the time it’s just me talking. You barely even answer when I ask what you want. This past weekend I didn’t even see you look through your phone. It’s like you’re practically dead.”

“What else is there to do. I can’t show up for training. My professors aren’t asking me to go back to school soon.”

“Find a new hobby? Continue whatever thing you’re writing. Enjoy the food I bring home. Laugh when you see a funny meme. Or you know, at least smile and do that nose blowing thing people do when you show them a funny meme..”

“My teammates are preparing for the new season. My classmates are at least all caught up in class. I spent too much damn time on that fucking sport. Now that it’s all gone, I feel like I’m just going with the flow of life instead of actually swimming,” Levi said, having taken that last part from Shela’s book.

“Everyone is just going with the flow of life. We’re all at the mercy of time anyway. Live for yourself. See joy in the small things at least. Look at me, I’m simping for athletes like some idiot in between studies.”

“Live for yourself? You follow people’s orders a lot for someone who gives this type of advice.”

“It’s not obeying people. I’m just asking questions and seeking advice. The more relevant facts, information and experience you have, the better the decisions you can make right. So can’t I argue that having more information at my fingertips makes me freer? ” Hange gave Levi a knowing and playful smile

He could tell by the look she gave him that she expected something in return. It was a rhetorical question though, maybe even a premature victory lap for having won that argument. Levi silently looked back at his laptop, not wanting to let her win.

Hange broke the silence. “Okay now that we’re on the topic of asking questions... who’s that Squad Leader Hange Zoe you’re writing about?”

* * *

Levi could not pinpoint the exact moment he decided for certain that squad leader Hange Zoe was real, when he decided for himself that the stories he was writing out should have been real.

It came as a gradual decision after incessant questions from Hange that at first, he was determined not to answer. Hange was smart about it, keeping the questions as things that could be answered with one word, and before he knew it, he was giving her too much information, it was pointless to blatantly refuse. After he had answered her more than enough questions, she smiled.

“Looks like you got my personality down,” Hange commented. Levi somehow knew her enough to tell there was no judgement or obligation in that voice. In fact, when he looked into her eyes, he saw that same wonder, he had seen many times before when she witnessed the jumps.

That wonder only carried over from questions on the squad leader to questions on his dreams and finally, to questions on how he wrote his dreams out.

_“How do you see the world?”_

_“How do I see the world?”_

_“Like what type of camera angles do you see the world in. If I asked you to imagine a tree, what kind of tree do you imagine? Do you imagine it from top to bottom, from trunk to top? Our minds are the most creative producers and cameramen you can think of.”_

_“Do you notice how well our body blends sensations? When the light turns off then on, there’s a split second where you see shapes when your eyes adjust from light to dark?”_

_“What are the physical manifestations of emotions? Do you feel your stomach drop? Do you ever get that tingling feeling in your legs and suddenly they’re jelly?”_

_Did you ever witness something so beautiful that you wish you could live forever just so you could never forget it?_

The conversation was a little deep and a little too philosophical for him. It was a ploy to get him writing and maybe a ploy to get him to understand the same wonder she had in the world from what he could tell. Somehow he needed it. The way Hange had described the world, the way she had described reality, only made the line between what could have been his imagination and his memory a little more distinct.

It was around then did he look at Hange Zoe the medical student to see the squad leader from his dreams. Erwin Smith, Hange Zoe and every single one of the soldiers in these dreams. They weren’t just dreams or manifestations of an exhausted mind.

In another life, she could have been real. The angles at which he saw the world, the way his body processed those sensations in his dreams, the manifestations of those emotions, too vivid even more vivid than a catharsis from a good book or a phenomenal ending to a TV show.

The questions continued to echo as Hange turned off the lights and Levi lay in bed awake. That food for the thought left Levi hyper aware of his surroundings, all the way down to the small details --- the way every piece of thread on the bed covers beneath him pressed on to him, the way his breath made a sound in the utter silence late at night no matter how much he tried to quiet it, the way the palpitations in his chest could be felt all the way until his head. He was excited to sleep, dream and take stock of his dreams yet he was too excited to fall asleep.

Like a five year old the night before their first field trip, Levi did not fall asleep anytime soon.

* * *

Nobody really questions the logic of dreams.

Sometimes one can find themselves only a few millimeters tall on top of a giant donut. Sometimes they can find themselves having milk tea with their favorite celebrity. Dreams are more felt by the moments they bring to people, not by the logic. It was only natural Levi did not question much of his dreams then.

That night as he lay awake, Levi made the conscious effort to live in his dreams, to take note of every detail from the sights and sounds, to the smells, the emotions, repeating to himself the questions Hange had asked earlier that day. What he had failed to consider then, was the context of dreams.

_Were Hange and the others okay?_

He found himself on the battlefield and he knew exactly what had to be done. In front of him was a large furry creature which the military had dubbed the Beast Titan and around him were other naked humanoid creatures called titans.

The Beast titan was flinging rocks at them and the soldiers were dying at an alarming rate.

Commander Erwin Smith ordered a suicide mission. All surviving soldiers were to rush towards the Beast Titan while Levi flew from the side of the walls and snuck towards him.

He knew what to do. The movements were natural and Levi had flown before, the gear on his waist had only made the whole mission easier. Somehow, on the battlefield he had the luxury of stock knowledge.

That stock knowledge was what had him slicing through the arms, through the eyes, through the achilles and finally through the nape of said titan. He pulled out a blonde man and pushed the sword through the man’s mouth.

He could feel his blood boiling. _From anger? Of course, the man had killed Erwin._ For a second, Levi had managed to get a view of the blond commander as he flew from the wall slashing titan after titan. He knew the man was probably dead.

_But there was a way to revive him._ There was a serum.

Before Levi could give it a second thought, a duck billed monster tore into his view and---

Levi sat up and screamed. He found himself in no hurry to dodge that duck billed titan. He was in Hange's apartment, too injured to be flying in the air in those contraptions anyway. He ran his hands through his body and up to his face, taking stock of his reality. He didn't reek of titan blood nor was he covered in it. He scanned the dark room, or at least what was visible given the moon was his only light source.

Somehow, those few moments as captain Levi had felt so real, watching the moon from his place on the sofa bed seemed almost dreamlike.

_Which one is my reality?_ Levi found himself questioning it all. As quickly as the questions came, they were answered. All he needed was one stimuli, strong enough to root him back into his reality.

"Hey, bad dream?"

The dark room and his own state of mind had made it difficult for him to notice that Hange had settled beside him. That voice though had pulled him out of his trance and he became certain at least that he was not dreaming anymore.

"Yeah," Levi managed to say. At the least he still had control of his voice.

Hange sat cross-legged next to him. The moon was at a perfect angle to illuminate her face and even in the dark room he could see it. Her eyes were looking right at him as if she were studying him a little too seriously.

She brought out one finger to his eye and pushed at the corner. That was when Levi felt it. The small tear spread on the corner of his eye and dried up within seconds. Levi only hastened the process by wiping it himself.

"I'm not leaving you tonight."

"Why?"

"I'll take full responsibility for this. It was my mistake that got you into this in the first place.”

"I've had them before. This is nothing new.” Levi argued. As Hange lay on the sofa bed next to him though, he realized he didn’t want her to leave. His body froze as if understanding that emotion, unwilling to accommodate the protests, the impulse inside him to argue, to force her to go back to her room.

The sofa bed was at least big enough for both of them, wide enough for a comfortable one to two feet space between them. Hange had made sure as well to lie on her side, only widening that space a little more.

“I don’t know how many times I’ve told you this but I swear I really do mean it every time. I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked as she said it.

Levi only continued to stare at the ceiling above him, listening to her disturbed and hitched breaths next to him as if she was holding back something. He didn’t want to look to his side, not wanting to further aggravate a reaction he sensed was raring to come out of her or to further tighten that knot which had settled itself on his chest. His dim surroundings only illuminated weakly by the moon, did not help at all.

Levi lay awake for a while longer, scrambling for words that could placate her.

_This is nothing new._ It hadn’t worked.

_I’m fine._ But he wasn’t.

_Things happen._ Had he not given that same consolation so many times before?

Eventually the rhythm of her breathing evened out enough for Levi to guess that she had fallen asleep, and as if by some special force, Levi found his breathing slowing down too. He was starting to relax.

The apartment was dark and quiet. It was peaceful, so peaceful that Levi never did notice when exactly he was pulled back into his dream. The dimness of the apartment was gradually replaced by the dimness of the forest a long time ago. The distant sounds of passing cars gradually replaced by the crackle of a fire and the rustle of leaves on a windy night.

He was surrounded by trees. A broken wooden cart lay to the side and a few feet away from it a campfire.

The soft and even breathing next to him stayed though. The same exact pattern, the same exact rhythm, the same hitched breaths--- all signs of the light uneasy slumber of his companion.

That was all Levi needed to hear to have sworn nothing much changed about her.


	8. Chapter 8

It was late enough in the morning an hour or so before lunch.

For most people it was a godly hour, not too early in the morning for most to still be shaking off sleepiness, not too late to be nap time for many others. The Levi of long ago would have been running from class to class or doing some extra training alone. Maybe he would have been going through timelines on social media.

Ironically though even with nothing much to occupy himself with, Levi was exhausted.

Possibly because in his dreams, he was constantly at war. Some experiences he remembered clear as day. Others were tethered to memory by a single scent. The captain in his dreams though was always fighting or he was at least constantly on his toes, ready to escape or kill when needed.

Maybe that was partially the reason Levi found himself more than ready to collapse onto the cot in Erwin’s clinic that Saturday morning with Hange in tow. Maybe that’s why he had found himself struggling to keep a grip on reality as Erwin and Hange exchanged greetings and updates.

Erwin and Hange had done all the work testing the stiffness and his bum knee through exercises. With the pain still fresh and violent with the right prodding, Levi opted not to look and attempted to occupy himself with anything else. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to fall into a trance and let the soldier inside him take over.

The voices were all too familiar for the captain. When he drowned out the words, the jargon, he was able to focus on the serious tones, the unchanging timbre in each of their voices. Erwin's voice exuded authority, seriousness and a dash of mischief. Hange's voice complemented his, constantly wondering, constantly enthusing, occasional peppering her tone with seriousness and possibly desperation.

_Of course, she's begging for Erwin's permission to start another research project._

_That's how it has always been since he joined the survey corps._

_Survey Corps._ That was the military legion the captain was part of. Their job was to journey outside the walls and kill titans. In his dreams, when he was outside the walls, he was either on horseback or flying. When he was within the walls, indoors in some office, he was hearing those voices. Hange was constantly pushing some research agenda and Erwin was always discussing limitations to budgets, logistics and expedition plans. Levi would usually just lean on the side of the wall and listen. Just hearing their voices was enough.

Even faced with his reality, Levi had to agree, hearing those same voices from his dreams was comforting, comforting enough to forget the burning and occasionally sharp pain in his knee that had dulled with rest.

A hand on his shoulder was what pulled him completely out of his trance. “How are you feeling?”

Levi opened his eyes on instinct as that one hand helped him up to a sitting position.

"The surgical wounds are healing at least." Erwin continued as he looked at Levi expectantly.

Levi hadn’t said anything at all but social conventions were the last thing on his mind then. He was completely back in his reality, he was processing everything from the natural light streaming from outside the wide window to the sound of the muffled sounds of the sheets under him as he was helped into a more comfortable position. Yet at the same time, Erwin talking directly at him, tapping him on the soldier and making eye contact with him had Levi grappling between his dreams and his reality once again.

In his dreams, Erwin had died. He wasn’t a doctor. He was the commander of an army. In fact, the first thing Levi had thought of when he locked eyes with him were the orders that had sent hundreds to their deaths.

“Are you feeling okay?”

 _Are you okay?_ Levi ended up asking himself. Something inside him was raring to get out but he had no idea what it was. The fear of the unknown had spurred him pushing it back down within him and that effort had made his head spin and left him with a nauseating feeling that only climbed up his throat.

“Levi? Hey...” That time it was Hange shaking him. “Erwin, it’s just been a week. Maybe we shouldn’t expect too much...” Her tone seemed more uncertain than it had been a minute ago.

Levi could only watch, unable to move as Hange gave Erwin a side glance. There was a flash of panic in her eyes then guilt. _Hey. I’m sorry._ She had given him that same forced smile so many times before.

 _It’s not your fault._ He would’ve wanted to say. All they needed was some sort of proof that he was still there and Levi dug for that impulse inside him, something to get him to move, despite that unfamiliar energy raring to break out of him.

He had found within himself enough energy to clear his throat and nod. That was enough at least for Hange to drop her shoulders and let out a small sigh which he hoped was relief..

"Erwin, were the sacrifices worth it?"

Levi only realized it a second later, only when Erwin widened his eyes and raised one eyebrow in question. By then it was too late, the words were out of his mouth.

“By sacrifice, you mean the surgery? I told you before. We won’t know if the risk was worth taking until late in the recovery.”

That wasn’t the answer Levi was looking for. By the time, he had made sense of it all though, that odd feeling had fallen back into him and Levi wondered why he even said it all.

* * *

“Commander Erwin Smith huh? How can there be two commanders at the same time?”

Levi had eventually gotten over Hange looking over his shoulder as he typed. As time went by, he ended up craving the warmth, the human contact and the companionship that came with her. And maybe that odd nagging feeling inside him that was so tenaciously reminding him not to take any of them for granted.

 _Stupid. What the fuck did I just ask?_ That had been his first thought as he left Erwin’s clinic. The whole trek back home, he had remained silent, forcing himself to at least get a little distracted by the physical exertion which came with a ten minute walk to Hange’s apartment in crutches.

If Hange hadn’t insisted they take the elevator, he probably would have attempted to climb the stairs as well. Just to give him something to do while his brain nagged in the background, possibly scolding him for his impulsiveness and his weak constitution.

He had over distracted himself though. He only realized as he settled into the sofa bed after a long and painful shower, laptop open next to him, that he had no idea in particular what he had put himself through all the pains for.

What was that strong nagging feeling he had so desperately wanted to distract himself from? He had so easily clocked it to embarrassment. As he stared at the document on his laptop and looked through the name Erwin Smith, as he put his dreams together and the trance that came with his meeting with Erwin only that afternoon, he realized that those nagging feelings were the extra details to fill in the gaps between those dreams.

That spark of nostalgia, inspiration or whatever positive emotion Levi clocked it to that day, had him typing faster than he had ever typed before. Even he was taken aback by his ability to type that fast.

It turned out Hange was a little surprised too and that’s exactly what had her looking over his shoulder too excitedly asking about the two commanders.

“Erwin died…” Those words caught at Levi’s throat. He quickly cleared it up. “But he made you the next commander.” He had attempted to clear his throat but by the surprised look Hange had given him, Levi guessed that he didn’t look too happy either. He didn’t feel good. The nagging feeling of a while ago that he had let loose in his mind had him writing. It also had him choking on something for a moment and soon after, it had numb to the core. As Levi reflected a little more on those sensations, he comprehend that possibly, he was mourning Erwin's death.

 _But Erwin’s alive._ Levi had to remind himself. Words did little though to quell the strong wave of emotions that faded to nothing within moments.

“Is that why you were... like that a while ago?” Hange asked, her voice suddenly much softer.

“Maybe…” Levi trailed off, using that extra few seconds of silence to dig at his thoughts while he wrote. Back then he had been grappling with two worlds, figuring out what was real or not. His body had frozen at the chaos and in that peace that followed, Levi had let something else take over. But he wasn’t going to tell her that.

“That bothered me…”

“I know. I'm sorry about how I was acting back in Erwin’s clinic,” Levi said, not looking up from his laptop. “I was feeling... a lot of things.”

“I don’t blame you. The results of the tests weren’t good either.”

Levi stopped typing mid word. That confirmation from Hange was all he needed to recall a little more and to make sense of that background noise back in Erwin’s clinic. He felt his heart drop. If it were any other day maybe he would have let out a tear for the life he had lost, the opportunity to run, jump and fly like he had used to.

There were more pressing things occupying his mind though, like his attempts to make sense of the dreams. His dreams came in snapshots and since he started attempting to write them out, Levi would record it scene by scene. As he scrolled through the document, scanning everything he had written, he started to realize there was so much he still didn’t know. The in-betweens that all culminated into that one scene in the woods.

That one scene with Commander Hanji and that one passing suggestion to run away together. That was the one dream he had remembered more than others and it had repeated itself to him more than once, more often since he had met Hange. More recently, Erwin had come up as a subject of his dreams. With the circumstances in his dreams and the knowledge that had been handed to him from Captain Levi then, he was able to deduce at least that Erwin had come before Hange.

"I don't even know if I'm doing everything correctly,” Levi muttered. If he had attempted to enunciate his thoughts any more clearly, he probably would have shown more emotion than necessary and refused to take that risk.

Hange had wanted to talk about his injury. He could see it in her face, she was building up to something, finding the right words and it looked like that mental preparation was hurting her in the process.

To the point that Levi felt like he was doing her a favor when he pushed the laptop screen at her. “There are more important things I want to think about other than my bum knee,” he said. That comment was at least enough to pull Hange out of wormhole of guilt she had been constantly throwing herself into since Levi had gotten injured. “Like this.” Levi gestured at the document displayed on the screen of his laptop. “Tell me about Erwin. Maybe if you told me more about him I could fill in the gaps here.”

“It’s your check up Levi. You should know the results..”

“Even if the results of those tests were good, this season is out of the question, just like Erwin said. And this is my last season anyway so it won’t make a difference. I would have graduated and found a job and never jumped again.”

 _Never jumped again._ Hange’s face at hearing those last three words was both surprised and crestfallen. Eventually, she had dropped her shoulders and looked back at the screen next to him. “Okay fine--”

“Tell me about Erwin first.,” Levi said, keeping his tone deadpan. What do you know about him?”

“He’s an orthopedics doctor, started off in Paradis hospital… Then he took further studies abroad then now he teaches but I think you got that---”

“I got _all_ those parts online,” Levi said. In fact, he had spent a good amount of time that morning going through whatever articles he could find on Doctor Erwin Smith that morning, a desperate attempt to make sense of that dream. Doctor Erwin Smith was a doctor and was well known in his field from what Levi could tell. He had authored multiple scientific journals that were locked behind paywalls. The abstracts that he was able to access were too cold, too scientific and too technical to give him a hint to who Erwin Smith could have been.

He wanted interviews, maybe a personal blog to get an idea of who Erwin was beyond his medical achievements. As Levi slogged through hours worth of links that morning, he started to realize there were limits to what the internet could offer. He had two options, he could ask Erwin himself or he could ask Hange what she knew.

And the latter seemed more accessible at that moment. “What is Erwin like? As a thesis advisor.” Levi asked. His fingers were poised, ready to write. Somehow, he knew as he watched Hange looked up at the ceiling in thought that with just a few words from her, he would have something to write, something to fill up the gaps to make sense of that sacrificial charge, his assault on the beast titan and the gut wrenching feeling that had him almost throwing up as the rocks met their target.

“Yeah, now that I think about it, I did choose to work under Erwin for his personality.” Hange looked back at Levi. “Dr. Erwin Smith is pretty well known in his field for a reason. Orthopedics is a pretty complex field and there are no straight cut procedures on how to deal with most injuries since we have to take into account nerves, blood vessels, muscle death, compartment syndrome…”

“So?” Levi pressed. He limited himself to one word. With just one word, it would least be easy to control whatever exasperation was rating to come out. It was just like Hange to expound on details before answering the question. Most days he wouldn’t have minded. At that moment in particular, he was just a little more impatient.

“Erwin is more successful when dealing with more difficult injuries because he likes to take calculated risks, most doctors wouldn’t want to risk their licenses or their patient’s welfare over. As a doctor, he approaches injuries and new cases as means of building knowledge and that’s why he publishes a lot more than others...”

Levi’s blood ran cold and he found himself unable to type. His attention had completely shifted towards Hange.

“And that’s why I picked him I guess. He approached research and the pursuit of truth a little more differently than most other doctors I could have worked with. You could say, maybe we approach research similarly?”

* * *

The Tuesday after his check up, Levi found himself once again on the couch in Shela’s office. The development into actually settling on the couch and letting the words flow was smooth, much smoother than when they had first met. Shela was there waiting on the office, clipboard in hand. And Levi knew by the way she had gestured towards the couch that he could take up any position he found most comfortable given his injured knee.

She had gone through the common pleasantries.

_How are your studies?_

His teachers had allowed him to submit the rest of his assignments at home. His classmates had still been sending lecture slides and notes. Levi was sure he could have made the trek to school everyday. Hange had even offered to pay the fare if he needed a taxi to get there, citing the commute to be a not too handicap friendly. He only had three classes and all the teachers had at least been sympathetic about his career breaking injury. As long as he submitted what they needed him to submit, he would pass. And Levi was not going to hesitate to accept that kindness on their end.

_How was the weekend?_

His weekend was eventful. He had gone out for that one check up that Saturday had had spent the rest of the weekend either studying or writing out his dreams. Hange had spent that Sunday writing her thesis while checking on him a good 10% of the time and on Monday she had gone to school leaving Levi alone in the apartment.

By Monday, his document was teeming with information on Erwin, some he could have sworn were correct while others he could have attributed to a deduction. Somehow, he was a little proud that he had done the homework she had asked of him.

_How are you feeling?_

“Did you write something down?”

That was until she asked him, looking at him expectantly as he scrolled through his laptop at the document. She probably wanted his feelings, his thoughts. Not some drug-induced daydream he had come upon over a little depression episode. By the time he realized how ridiculous his answer to her homework had been, it was too late. He had given her enough signs to think that the open document on his laptop was his ‘homework’, the gateway to his mind, the attempt at an articulation of his thoughts.

As she read, she kept her face unreadable and her succeeding actions unpredictable. Levi mentally braced himself for a shut down, a comment that would probably leave him resisting the impulse to delete whatever he wrote. He could have been watching her unmoving expression for hours.

Eventually, her mouth turned up into a smile. “This is a good start.”

“It’s… a story I’ve been working on,” Levi said.

“And it looks like a self insert…”

Levi felt the blood rush through his cheeks. “Yes. It is.” There was no point in embellishing what it could have been to the normal reader.

“And it looks like you got Doctor Erwin and Hange here too.”

Of course she would know Erwin. He was the one who referred him to her after all. “Yeah, I’ve been staying with Hange so I have been seeing her a lot.” Levi continued, in an attempt to justify their large presence in his story without sounding like a complete stalker.

“I know, Erwin told me you were staying with Hange.”

“You’ve met her?”

“Erwin introduced her to me when we were still discussing the sessions. She asks about you.”

That cleared up at least some of his question. He was at least aware then that she kept a correspondence with Hange.

“And what did you tell her?”

Shela shrugged. “There’s nothing much to say yet. I think at this rate, she probably knows more about the state of your mental health than I do. This is just our second session after all.”

“She knows about these stories too…” Levi admitted. He found himself freezing up as he started to become aware of how crazy he sounded, having created a self insert fiction with people he had only met less than two months ago. As he gave it a second thought, he started to realize as well, he had even added Hange’s laboratory mates Nifa and Moblit to the mix of his stories, the few scenes he had remembered visiting Hange’s squad in their post.

“This isn’t anything to be embarrassed about. People cope through various ways. My job is to make you understand this and turn it into something which can help you heal and eventually grow.”

Levi had to muster up the courage to look up at her. He was sure his face was a few shades redder than what he would have wanted. When he locked eyes with her, he couldn’t help but notice they were softer than they were a few minutes ago.

Shela put her clipboard down and pen down on the table. Somehow, Levi felt in her actions, a little more of concern and emotional investment than he had ever felt before. It was seen in the way she leaned forward and widened her eyes in curiosity at him. And as she spoke up, he was able to confirm that it wasn’t just a trick of the mind.

Her voice was warmer, nostalgic and it started to feel more like he was talking to a very old friend. “Okay, tell me about them. Tell me about Erwin and Hange.”

 _The ones in my dreams? The ones in my story? Or the ones in real life?_ Levi was close to asking. He noted the confidence in her eyes and on the smile that settled on her lips and soon realized he had no need to clarify. She had chosen her words well.

As soon as he spoke up, he understood. The many dreams and the emotions that ran through him could attest to that same assumption. Erwin Smith and Hange Zoe were the same two people, regardless of which dimension he encountered them in.

* * *

_Have you ever thought of reincarnation? I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept but have you ever thought hard about that theory?_

_Reincarnation?_

_I did a lot of research on this and I’ve strongly believed since then that this is what happens when we die… Do you ever think...What if those dreams are someone telling you something? Someone from a long time ago?_

_What if it’s just the product of what’s been happening?_ Levi had argued then. When she had mentioned that, she had sounded more like a friend throwing outrageous theories than an actual therapist. There was some truth to what she was saying despite Levi’s doubts. He had been having those dreams since before he got injured after all.

When that one hour session ended, Levi had been left with that open ended question to ponder. Shela did not push it after all. She had strategically left enough crumbs for Levi to question. And the questions only resounded much louder as he exited the building to find Hange on a bench by the entrance, looking through what could have been another journal on her iPad.

“Four eyes, what are you doing here?” Levi asked. With the glare of the screen reflecting on her glasses, she had looked like a ‘four eyes’ at that exact moment he called out to her.

She looked up at him and the glare quickly disappeared. “Levi! You’re done.”

“And you came here to pick me up.”

Hange nodded. “My classes end early today and there’s not much work to do in the lab with the type of thesis I’m doing… so why not?”

“What if I didn’t notice you and I went ahead and you ended up waiting for no one?” Levi asked. “If I weren’t looking right, I could have completely missed you."

"Well you didn't right?" 

"You could have waited inside. ”

“The hospital courtyard makes a nice view,” Hange answered. She was right. Autumn was only making itself more and more known through the orange dotting the green landscape in the courtyard. A lot more color than he had seen lately, having cooped himself up in her apartment.

 _And maybe I should have left you so you could appreciate it more?_ Levi was tempted to banter with her a little more.

Hange had made herself an easy target at that moment for a little teasing and jokes. Her hair was up in a messy half ponytail and the distracted look remained on her face, a sign that she had probably been a little too focused on what she had been reading until he called out to her.

That look of slight disengagement from her could have been frustrating for most. At that moment when Levi had a good look at her face, he concluded that it was more endearing than anything else and ended up indulging in it for a few more seconds, not wanting to break the moment with another half assed comment.

It was Hange who broke it on her end. “Before I forget!” By then her eyes had lit up. A sign that she had completely adjusted back into her reality. She rummaged through her bag next to her and pulled something out. “I saw this in a gift shop on the way there and I thought of you.” She grabbed Levi’s hand from where it hung on the side and plopped the keychain on his open palm. “Moblit got me something similar for my birthday. He probably got it in the same place now that I think about it.” She added.

 _Thought of you._ Levi’s thoughts were somehow stuck on those words as he observed how the purple strands weaved around the green ring, similarly to the trinket Hange owned and which he had momentarily kept and treasured just a few weeks ago. 

“It’s a dream catcher.” Hange said.

Levi found himself still stuck on those words of a while ago, still distracted by the familiar trinket she had gifted him.

“So, maybe it could help you remember your dreams a little more? Maybe help you sleep better at night?” She continued.

“It could,” Levi said. He didn't want to be the hypocrite, having griped about Hange’s lack of attention skills a few times before. He ended up quickly digressing though, having been a little too fixated on his conversation with Shela from a while ago and Hange's passing comment. “Hange do you remember of a life before? At all?” He asked as he pocketed the keychain.

“A life before?” Hange stood up, hung the canvas bag over her shoulder and gestured for him to walk next to her.

She kept her strides small and her pace slower than usual. For Levi, it was the perfect cadence to follow on crutches and somehow, that only reinforced that little hope inside him. _I thought of you._ She had said then.

“A life before,” Levi clarified. “Maybe you had dreams of people you thought you never met. Maybe you’ve felt the urge to write it all out and when you read it, it feels like you’ve lived that life before.” _Did you ever dream of me too?_ He was raring to ask her. He knew he wanted it a raw answer from her mouth, not an idea he would have planted.

"Isn't that the same for every story read?” Hange looked at him questioningly. “If it's well written enough, you can feel like you're living their life too?”

Levi considered rephrasing the question, adding more details and possibly pressing for more answers from the brunette. The confused frown though had said it all. It had Levi looking straight ahead, not wanting her to see how the disappointment that coursed through his whole body at that moment, manifested itself in his face. _No. It's different._

“This is the only life I've ever had. ” Hange said, only confirming verbally what he had already figured out.

 _This is the only life I’ve ever had too. That was just a stupid theory I found online._ Levi was about to say. He was tempted to deny it all, and reduce every single dream, every single emotion that had pushed him to writing over tens of thousands of words of scenes out, into a fevered illusion.

He had been close to saying it then as he studied the side profile that fit so well the ones he had seen in his dreams. The messy wavy brown hair, the sharp nose and the hazel eyes so bright with wonder and life, and the deep yet naturally assertive timbre in her voice all culminated to the Hange he knew. And they all evoked emotions so deep and so unintelligible to Levi then as he watched.

As he vacillated between denying his dreams and reveling in the disappointment, those emotions did tell him one thing. If he denies it, he denies the emotions and the bond that had been drawing him to Hange since a month ago. Consequently, he denies all those moments that lead them there, to a state where he’d be comfortable enough to pursue such a question.

In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to deny it. He saw meaning behind their meeting, behind the mutual interests and the emotions that had brought them closer together. If it turned out he was the only one who saw it, then so be it. He could live with that.

 _This is the only life I ever had._ “Or at least, this is the only life I remember having.” She quickly added, even before Levi could figure out the right way to express his disappointment.

A researcher never made conclusions without the right evidence. Hange had always been a researcher, a scientist. To Levi, she had always embodied the authentic researcher, having made millions more questions than conclusions. He was relieved to see that just like during the many times he had seen her ponder, she hadn’t made an inalterable conclusion just yet.

“So you believe in reincarnation then?” Levi asked.

Hange shrugged. “With the right evidence and theories maybe?”

Relieved, Levi let out a light chuckle. There were still lots more to figure out.

_And they can do it together._


	9. Chapter 9

The oval stretched out in front of him, much wider than his range of vision but Levi felt no need to look around him and take in the whole view. It was the largest oval in his city and having been one of the more active high jumpers the past five years, he had been there enough to memorize it inside and out.

That particular day, instead of being out there in the field doing warm up jumps like he had been for the past decade of his life, he was on the bleachers, a few seats away from the front. He was merely a part of the audience, an oddly surreal experience. For years, Levi had never given the audience a passing thought after all. His world during those few hours on the track had consisted of the bar he had to jump over, the jumper before him, his coach and teammates on the bench and maybe some the interviewers who would flock to him after the medal ceremony.

Although he had gone to that track so many times before, somehow it felt like he was experiencing it for the first time.

He was unprepared as well. Levi found himself pushing his hands farther into his hoodie huddling for whatever warmth it could afford him. Possibly it was the long days he had spent indoors that had made him unready for how cold mid autumn could actually be.

The past two weeks leading up to that particular night, Levi had not left the comforts of Hange's apartment much aside from for the occasional check up or regular therapy session. When he wasn't writing or making sense of new dreams, he spent most of his days catching up with schoolwork or trying to help around her apartment even with his injury.

With the long hours he had spent indoors, he was almost sedentary in comparison to the twice a day training and it was a drastic change. As he watched the other athletes warm up on the track, he was unable to fathom how he had survived long ago in light athletic wear. He started to wonder how much he had changed. If his knee wasn’t casted or buckling at the slightest weight, if he had a perfectly good knee just like a few weeks ago, would he have still been able to jump.

Was that sudden sensitivity to the cold he was feeling a product of his psyche or did his body just suddenly get weaker due to his long stint indoors?

 _To think I used to actually win these events._ With the disbelief that came with that passing thought, Levi suddenly remembered why he had hesitated to join them in the first place. Everything from the atmosphere, to the warm up jumps found a way to hurt him. The few whispers he could hear from his place on the bleachers about the Ackerman kid, who had achieved a college record less than a year ago suddenly sidelined for life, were reminding him why exactly he had cooped himself up in the first place.

At first, he had attributed a huge chunk of that to the healing process, the writing process and the general lack of necessity to go out. At that moment, he was watching athletes do the jumps he knew how to perfectly execute yet was sure he would never be capable of doing again. At the same time, he was listening to whispers that could have been very much about him with the smatters of conversations on knee injuries and wasted talent.

He had looked towards Hange for comfort, an almost instinctive movement. Ironically, that movement had him rubbing more salt on his already reopened wounds. He had ended up watching Hange fall so easily to a state of a daydream and Levi did not need to look back at the oval to know why. She was watching the athletes go through the motions of the jumps.

He recognized that same look to be the one she had given Elijah and those athletes on her instagram feed. He would have given a lot to be able to go back to the Levi of a few weeks ago, the Levi who had been the subject of her hyper fixations. The inevitability of time had him hating himself a little more.

Levi cleared his throat in an attempt to swallow the lump that had settled there and willed himself to look back at the field. The temptation to space out was strong.

He had decided on watching the high jump event for a reason though and he was determined to make it worth it.

* * *

"Mike and Nanaba?” Levi repeated. The names flowed out of his mouth so smoothly so easily as if he had said those names many times before. Of course, he knew them. They were the subject of Hange’s case study years ago, the one he had read in preparation for meeting Hange.

“Mike Zacharius and Nanaba Briete,” Hange repeated. “Two friends from high school. They’re both participating in the high jump event so I thought of watching."

 _Mike and Nanaba._ As Levi soon found out though the names weren’t cold to his tongue. They didn’t feel as stiff or professional despite their clear origins from an academic paper. It was almost second nature for Levi to attach faces to both of their names.

And that had been a breakthrough at that moment. For the past few days, he had been struggling to dream something different. Ever since Hange had given him a dream catcher, the dreams with Erwin and Hange had surprisingly been clearer and those scenes he had pictured had so easily flown from mind to paper, particularly his dreams to see the outside wall, his drive for atonement, his heroic sacrifice. It had also made him familiar with more subtle things like the long hours he had spent in the office, the amount of time he had spent joined to Erwin’s hip as his right hand man, and the trust he had put on him all the way until the end of his life.

He had squeezed what he had taken out of every memory and every dream and suddenly one day, he woke up to find himself completely intimate with that dream Erwin. Yet the story wasn’t complete, he just had to find inspiration elsewhere.

In an attempt to support him, Hange had been doing her part too to invite him out when she could.

She had suggested movies, shopping or dinner out. Levi could see behind it though and knew Hange would have preferred hiking, park hopping or working out. Not wanting to settle for bland ideas, they probably would have both slogged through, Levi declined all of them despite Hange’s insistence.

Ironically, her mention of plans to watch his college track and field event of all things had been an exception. "I'll come with you," Levi said without thinking.

Hange frowned in concern. “You sure?”

“Why? You don’t want me to come?”

Hange shook her head. “It’s not that…. I’m just surprised that you seemed a little too eager. I thought watching something like that might be torture for you.”

“I haven’t gone out in so long. I’m fine with anything at this rate.”

“We could start with a trip to the mall? Or we could go out for dinner?” Hange lightly suggested.

“I wanna get to know your friends too,” Levi said.

Hange raised one eyebrow at him as she eyed him a little too suspiciously. “You never seemed like the type to actually enjoy meeting new people.”

Levi avoided her gaze. If it were any other friends, he probably wouldn’t have cared enough to leave the comforts of Hange’s apartment. In fact, meeting his classmates and having face-to-face classes were a burden he was happy to avoid. Those names which Hange had mentioned, the faces that suddenly clicked in his brain, which were further confirmed by a quick google search had him all the more invested. “Nanaba and Mike seem like interesting people,” Levi finally admitted.

Her reaction was unexpected to say the least. Levi found himself practically jumping out of his seat in shock at the explosion of laughter that came out of your mouth. “Why the hell are you laughing?”

Eventually, her laughter did die down but Levi wasn’t counting the seconds until it did. He had been too busy enjoying the way her eyes crinkled and her nose wrinkled as she smiled. “Wait ‘til Nanaba and Mike hear this. The quiet antisocial guy who beat them out of first place every single fucking time is actually interested in getting to know them

“Wait. I went against them?”

“Aaaaand you don’t even remember.” Hange flailed her hands up exaggeratedly. “I should have known.” She shook her head. Her voice still had the remnants of the loud laughter of a while ago and she didn’t look like she would be getting rid of that playful demeanor anytime soon.

“And now you’re just making fun of me.

Hange wiped a tear from the side of her eye. “I’m sorry. I probably look so weird right now. I know I shouldn’t be acting like this.” As she put her hand down, she looked back up at him, her smile visibly wider than it was a second ago. “It just never dawned on me till now how weird it just feels. If I told my past self I’d be sharing an apartment with jumper extraordinaire Levi Ackerman, past Hange would have tried to slap some sense into me.”

 _Jumper extraordinaire Levi Ackerman._ Somehow, Levi was recalling the way she had held his hands and stared at him, the first time he had laid eyes on her. _I heard you’re the best one in the team… I’d love to see you in action._ The glimmer in eyes and the excited tone in her voice that fluctuated between highs and lows with every syllable, it was the same as it had been then when she first called out to him.

Hange took a deep breath. “The tournaments were the only times Nanabe and Mike would visit this part of town so they’d invite me to watch every year…”

“And you watched it every year…” Levi didn’t need to confirm anything. It was all in her eyes.

As if she knew she had given it all away through her eyes, Hange quickly looked away. She had done nothing though to hide the pink in her cheeks. She probably couldn’t have done anything to hide it anyway. “When the super rookie Levi Ackerman scored an almost record breaking upset win…” Hange recounted so mechanically as if she were reading a headline. “I was in the crowd. And I never stopped following him since.”

 _And I never stopped following him since._ The moment Hange said it, she dropped her shoulders to the side, so quickly and so eagerly, Levi wondered what kind of baggage she had been holding for her to look so free as she said those last words. His mind shifted elsewhere before he could ponder it any longer.

It was a long shot but Levi still found himself looking back, scrambling to recall his first every competition through lasting sensations from the cold breeze, the blinding lights and the cacophony of cheers mixed with announcers’ commentaries.

As if by some miracle, he remembered it. He remembered it as he mentally prepared for the most crucial jump. The bar was a good two meters up in the air. His legs were aching, his heartbeat was getting wilder. Before he jumped, he had glanced at the bleachers as the murmurs and cheers got stronger and consequently more difficult to ignore. On the bleachers, more specifically on the fifth row from the front, sat Hange. Her hair still as brown and untamed as always, her eyes held the same wonder it always had. _And maybe a little surprise?_ That had been his first tournament after all.

He had only given her a passing glance then. Within a split second, she had blended with the scenery as he ran towards the bar. The jump that came quickly after was strong and exhilarating.

And as Levi landed on the cushion on the other side of the bar, welcoming explosions of gasps and wild cheers as he did, he couldn’t help but reflect on it.

_Rookie Ackerman bags gold in the Regional Cup with record breaking height._

That first tournament jump had been life changing, inspiring. Possibly it was the jump that had paved the way to the years of victory that followed.

No sane athlete would have memorized the faces in the crowd. For him though, it felt criminal that he had only noticed it then as she admitted it to him herself.

She had been a part of that experience too.

* * *

Eventually, Levi did get tired of torturing himself. He knew the way to the barely used locker rooms in the building next to the oval and he seeked solace there. Somehow, he found it worth it to make a slight scene as he struggled to keep his balance and he maneuvered his crutches down the bleachers.

When he got to the empty locker room, with only the dark ceiling above him and silence, that made even the dripping of water deafening, he was able to forget the embarrassing and frustrating journey there. And within a few more minutes, he did forget the onslaught of emotion that had culminated into a wave of incomprehensible emotions, manifesting as demons in his head.

With a lack of stimuli to remind him of his reality, he was once again numb. And numbness tended to lead to dreaming. The old locker room was no place to fall asleep though and Levi found himself trying to focus on whatever faint stimuli could reach him as to stay rooted in his reality.

Faint cheers made their way into the dark room. Levi had watched more than enough jumps to know the cheers flowed with the movements, always at their loudest when the athlete is at their highest. Oddly enough, he had managed to drown out the cheers more easily when he was in the middle of them.

Although they were faint, they were still much louder and more rattling than Levi had ever experienced them to be. And the cheers did rattle him to the bone. His body shook every time the cheers reached their crescendo and he wondered if Hange was watching too. Was she screaming? He could imagine her cheers so easily and he found himself trying to pick it out among what could have been hundreds of other voices.

Her voice was unique, nostalgic, memorable. It should have been easy. But the cheers were too faint. Even in the silence, he found it difficult to split them into individual voices, let alone isolate one out of hundreds. He leaned back on the cold wall, slipped onto the floor and closed his eyes.

“Levi?”

Levi had assumed it to have been a dream at first. The voice he had been raring to pick out among the crowd was right next to him. He willed himself not to open his eyes for fear that the voice might just disappear.

That small voice had opened up to sounds of steps then the brush of cloth on tiles. He felt a warm hand behind him, pulling him gently away from the wall and the warmth of something around him. Levi let out a cough, only then, when the cold was replace by warmth, did he realize how chilly the room actually was.

“You can really sleep anywhere huh?" Her voice had been too near, right next to his ear. Her breath tickled his ear and brushed past his neck. Even before he realized it, he had opened his eyes, Levi was already returning the subtle smile Hange had given him.

“What were you dreaming about?” It had become routine for Hange to ask that question. Levi couldn’t blame her. When he was at his worst, sometimes that was the only thing he was willing to talk about.

“Nothing. I wasn’t sleeping. I was just thinking,” Levi answered. “How are the results?”

Hange shrugged. “You saw it yourself. Elijah grabbed gold in the vertical jump. Mike silver…” She paused for a second.

“So none of the other jumpers after them got higher scores?”

“They still didn’t beat your record from last season.”

“I don’t need that reassurance,” Levi said. “This would have been my last season anyway. I’m gonna graduate, find a job, forget this sport then find out some other kid beat my record in a few years.”

“Why did you leave after Elijah cleared the 2.3 meter bar then?” Hange didn’t at all sound like she had wanted to provoke him. Levi was certain all she had wanted were answers.

“Why were you staring at Elijah like that when he jumped?” As he thought back to the final straw that had made him stand up and brave the stairs and the whispers from the crowd just so he could leave the field mid tournament, he realized exactly why. Hange hadn’t even noticed the way her eyes lit up at him. Somehow, that was enough to have Levi shaking as he saw the confusion in her eyes.

“Staring like what?”

“Your mouth was wide open and your eyes were stuck on him.”

“I just got a little excited I guess. When I see jumps that high, sometimes I feel like I’m flying myself,” Hange said. “Or I dunno, I’ve never flown before but it’s just so easy to get lost in it sometimes.”

“Did you feel that same way? When I jumped?” _Used to jump._ Regret weighed on him. As the seconds ticked as he waited for her answer, that regret gradually took over and pushed at his chest, making it more difficult to breath. It had been that one movement after all, that impulsive and reckless decision that had him there in that dark unused locker room instead of outside in the tournament.

 _It was his last season anyway._ He had consoled himself so many times before. But it wasn’t the season and the career-ending injury that had him heavy hearted at that moment. Impending retirement in sports loomed for most college athletes, especially in their senior year. Levi had prepared himself for it already.

At first, it had been the loss of that one unique sensation, the blue sky above him, and the his body detached from the earth for that split second, the loss of that memorable and unique experience of having both air and gravity as his enemy as he flew through the air with the wind blowing through his face as if executing their own plans to stop him. When the dreams returned and when he had started to write them out, eventually the weight in his chest lightened, replaced by another one.

As he spent more time observing Hange and talking to her in between her thesis writing and his own writing, he noticed it fester slowly. Only when his chest lightened, set free from that other weight, did it start to make itself known.

Hange never stopped watching jumps, turns, tumbles, runs and spins. Sometimes, she would turn on the tv in the living room to some athletic meet. Sometimes, she’d just be scrolling through her timeline, liking whatever inhumane stunts an athlete was showing her at that moment. She had those same raised eyebrows, that same gaping mouth, those same dilated pupils and that same glimmer in the eyes that he wished was just the glare of the screen.

 _And I never stopped following him since._ Had she looked at him with that same expression? That same exact expression she had given Elijah? Would there ever be away to look back at those moments, zoom into her and look for everything from the raised eyebrows, gaping mouth, dilated pupils and that glimmer in her eyes?

 _Did you look at me that same way?_ That was all he had wanted to ask. Hange wouldn’t have known though.

“Of course I did.” Hange answered. Levi could only wish it were true. Without seeing that same expression, he would never know.

“But I’ll never jump like that again. So I don’t think you’ll get that from me anymore.”

 _I can get it elsewhere._ Levi had prepared his heart for that reply. He was at least ready enough not to lash out.

“Because you offer other things,” Hange said. “These stories about Captain Levi and Hange Zoe… Commander Erwin Smith? When we’re up late at night and you start talking about those contraptions that get us flying through the air like birds? I don’t know if it’s the way you describe it or if it’s the passion in your eyes but… it’s like I could have been flying too.”

“You _were_ flying.” And Levi held on to the image so tightly, that the words flowed too naturally out of his mouth. If he hadn’t been staring at the blank ceiling above him, recalling easily how she had tumbled and turned so freely in the air, he probably would have been conscious about how much of a madman he had sounded like.

Hange didn’t seem to mind though. “Even if just in my own dreams, it would be nice.”

The dim room only made the transition from consciousness to unconsciousness a little easier. The coat over his shoulders and the warmth that it kept close to him didn’t help keep him awake either. His dim surroundings blurred into nothingness, the last two sensations he made out was the arm around his shoulder and the faint discomfort as he dropped his head onto what could have been a bony shoulder.

_You were flying._

It was as if his dreams had heard the conversation of a while ago. Squad Leader Zoe, Commander Hange Zoe. Dreams of her came in snapshots, in crumbs that indulged all his five senses. The whizzing of cables, the explosion of gas, familiar yet distant screams of excitement, week old sweat.

 _Her greasy hair on his hands._ Then Levi found himself on horseback, his and Hange’s faces were a little too close for comfort. It didn’t take much to remember why though.

She had said something about wanting to meet an abnormal titan and he was in the mood for jokes.

* * *

“Of all the years and tournaments you could have ditched, it had to be the tournament with my first ever golden medal performance.”

“Nanaba, I’ll make it up to you promise…”

“To think you’re the one who roped me into this sport in the first place…”

They had the whole taxi ride to start an argument. Levi was grateful at least the conversation only reached _that_ topic when they were already in the elevator on the way to Hange’s apartment. Hange had prepared some hard drinks, some soft drinks, some chasers and _a lot_ of water. He was sure that the argument with devolve into something a little less coherent and might actually fizzle out within an hour or so with the right cocktail mix.

He had gone through that same bout of adventure with his own teammates after all. Nanaba continued to talk her ear off while Mike and Hange cleared out the dining table. Levi sat on one of the chairs, making himself useful by opening up the bottles handed to him by Moblit.

“I’m gonna need something hard first. Imagining being awarded that gold medal then looking in the crowd for the person who inspired me to try high jumping in the first place.” Nanaba sat to Levi’s left pouring what could be a nauseating amount of gin into the cup and emptied it within seconds. “And lo and behold, it looks like you were hiding out with wonderboy here in one of the old locker rooms.” She turned to Levi. “So… What _were_ you guys doing there?”

Oddly enough, Levi didn’t understand the question at first glance. It could have been interpreted as an innocent question. When he wasn’t taking into account the cat-like grin, the raised eyebrows and the wide-eyed gaze.

It was Moblit who confirmed her intention. He turned to Hange. “There isn’t anything between you and Levi though right?”

“No one needs to be in a relationship to do anything.” Mike added, begrudgingly wise words from the most quiet one in the room.

“Nothing really…” Hange sat next to Nanaba and poured her own glass of gin, mixing it with some soft drinks. “I just kept him company. And he fell asleep next to me.”

Nanaba turned to Levi, her cheeks much redder than they were a second ago. “You sure?” She cupped her hands over her mouth and whispered in a still very audible volume. “Blink twice if you need help.”

“I don’t remember much, I fell asleep.”

Everyone in the room jumped as Nanaba abruptly slammed her hand on the table. “And you just let your biggest fangirl get away with doing whatever she wanted with you huh?”

“Biggest… fangirl?” Levi asked.

Nanaba turned to Hange. “Don’t you have a folder of pictures of him on your phone?” She dove under the table. From where Levi sat he could only hear the frazzled protests of Hange.

“The pictures aren’t on my phone anymore!” Hange screamed.

“What pictures?” Levi asked, trying his best to ignore the slams and the sounds of struggle from below.

“We did go to all of your competitions.” Mike admitted. “They went for personal reasons… I went for my own research.”

Levi noted that Mike and Elijah tended to alternate second and third place between the both of them. According to Hange that is. He never looked beyond his own experiences and his own injury had made him all the more hesitant to research high jumping stats.

“That sounds reasonable.” Levi managed to say. Small talk had never been his forte. Especially when his conversation partner wasn’t leaving much opening to continue.

For a while they were both silent. “It’s a shame. You made the competition interesting. If _this_ didn’t happen, you could have pushed the sport to new levels. ”

“Accidents happen. Someone else will show up and do it,” Levi kept his voice toneless as if he were just rattling off a list of inevitable events. That probably was going to happen anyway. His current inebriated state just convinced him that it wasn’t worth pondering at that moment.

“Moblit! Keep my phone and Nanaba, just go the fuck to sleep already.” Hange’s tone and her face then that managed to be both cold and furious at the same time was terrifying. Maybe, because it was the first time he had ever seen her so angry.

“You’re one of my closest friends Hange…. Be happy…” Nanaba slurred.

 _Happy._ Hange always seemed happy, barring that one sleepless night he did see her cry. At that moment though, Levi instinctively looked towards her, his brain somehow expecting to see a smile on her face.

Of course, with what happened just a while ago she wasn’t smiling. She pressed her phone onto Moblit’s hand and whispered something to him. She returned back and sat next to Levi, taking Nanaba’s seat of a while ago. “Well, I had pictures to be honest but just for a few months I guess? I mean I really liked your jumps and I wanted to keep them...”

“No. It’s nice to know I had a secret admirer.” No actually, Levi probably would have found it odd if it were anyone else. He was doing the equivalent of writing fanfiction about her and somehow, keeping a secret folder of photos of him seemed mild. Although she had mentioned deleting it, Levi found himself clinging to the hope that she might still have kept a few. 

“Hange, Let me make it up to you,” A voice and a pair of arms came up from behind Hange and wrapped around both of their shoulders. Levi could smell the strong alcohol in them.

“Nanaba, I think you should go to sleep now…” Moblit said. He stood up and started to prepare one of the mattresses Hange had laid out on the side of the room.

“Make it up to me by going to sleep…” Hange mumbled visibly uncomfortable.

Nanaba ignored her. “Levi, could I ask you one favor?”

“What is it?” Levi asked, keeping his eyes fixed on the still half fall glass of tequila in front of him. He had only been taking only small and cautious sips after all.

“Could you kiss Hange?” Nanaba asked “At least, just a peck on the cheek?”

“Kiss?”

“Nanaba! Go. to sleep.”

Levi could hear the rattle of her chair and from his peripherals he could see Hange moving to stand up but before he could have even processed anything else, he felt a hand on his head, a slight push.

And within a split second, he felt wet lips, he tasted alcohol, he saw scenes and he heard voices.

Within another split second they were all gone.

Hange had gone red, he could see it in her cheekbones. She had her hand cupped to her mouth, her eyes wide with what could have been shock or embarrassment. As Levi felt the blood run through his cheeks and his incapacity to do anything but stare, he started to wonder what he had looked like.

“Weren’t you wondering how his lips tasted? During that one tournament?”

“That was a joke…” Hange said. She swallowed a lump on her throat and as she narrowed her eyes, Levi could see the beginnings of what could have been tears. _Was it really a joke?_

“Nanaba. Let’s get you to bed.” Mike appeared from behind Nanaba and guided her back to the mattress Moblit had prepared. He started whispering to Nanaba so slowly and gently, Levi almost admired him for his patience.

That exchange between Nanaba and Mike had only lasted a second. By the time Levi did look beside him, Hange was already gone and he could hear the door slam behind him.

Levi took a quick glance at both Moblit and Mike who were still trying to subdue an overly excited Nanaba before he stood up. Not bothering to even grab his crutches from the other side of the wall, he hobbled the few meter distance toward the door of her room.

“Hange?” Levi opened the door just wide enough to see it. She hadn’t locked the door at least.

“I still have the pictures on my phone.” She sounded apologetic. She sat at the foot of her bed, her face towards the ground. Levi could tell by the crack on her voice that she was in no mood to look up.

“The pictures of me?”

“I can delete them if you want. I know it’s creepy. I shouldn’t have taken so many during tournaments.”

“And you wanted to kiss me?”

Hange fell limply on the bed and looked up at the blank ceiling. She had looked like she was avoiding his gaze. “It was a weird passing thought. I mean, I know a lot of girls have those types of things but I guess it really is creepy when the person isn’t as big of a celebrity as boy groups or actors. But I’ve wanted to be an athlete since before I could remember. I wanted to jump, to see how it feels like flying through the air. And when I saw you jump, I swear you could have had wings on your back with how well you were able to control yourself up there. You made me feel like I could fly too and I guess I got a little obsessed and ended up thinking a lot of creepy shit. I know it’s weird and I sound like a stalker…”

“No it’s not. I still have the stories about you. I’m just as weird,” Levi looked towards the wall, a gesture of respect for Hange who looked like she was in no mood to look at him.

“But, you only started writing them after we met.”

“But the stories are so detailed, it’s embarrassing,” Levi said. “if I made you feel so strongly about this, you felt obsessed enough to sneak pictures. Just remember, you made me feel things too. And these things I felt, ended up making me write. And I’ve never written in my life.”

“How did I make you feel?”

“Like I could fly too.” His dreams could attest to the fact that he wasn’t lying. Levi chose that moment to look at her and their eyes locked even before he consciously tried to follow her gaze. She had lain on the bed, looking more relaxed than a second ago.

Hange scooched over. Levi noticed then with the slight movement that his right knee was starting to ache, having taken the load of all his body weight as he hobbled.

Her scooching over could have been a subtle movement more than anything but with his aching legs, Levi decided the risk was probably worth it. He approached the bed on the side Hange had opened up. “I thought of stuff I wanted to write... Nanaba and Mike were in those dreams too. For a time we would go out for drinks after a long day of training. Meat was hard to come by but sometimes, we would have the budget to blow on a plate of meat and we’d share it. Erwin would be there too. And sometimes, they would joke that we bickered like a married couple.”

“You really built your whole world huh? What inspired you to think that up this time? The alcohol? Meeting Mike and Nanaba? Having our heads bashed together?

 _The kiss?_ The visions of the split second chose to remind Levi of their existence at that particular moment. “The kiss?” The words rolled off his tongue so easily and so fluidly.

“You don’t have to call it a kiss if you don’t want to.” We didn’t decide to do it. So technically it isn’t right?”

Levi had wanted to argue. Hange’s denial of that kiss only made his memories clearer and the emotions tied to them much stronger.

That peck had been satisfying, euphoric. It was a cathartic release of pent up emotions. Yet at the same time it had only lasted a split second. In that silent room, on the bed next to Hange, he had enough of a breather to reflect and maybe articulate that particular gesture. His feelings were strong enough to at least convince him to keep it as is. “It’s a kiss,” he said.

The silence stretched for what could have been eternity. “It’s a kiss then,” Hange said. “Did it make you feel anything?”

“I liked it.” Levi kept it to those three words. If he gave his mouth and his emotions free reign, he might just say something he would regret.

“Did you see anything? Did it inspire you to write something else about Captain Levi and Commander Zoe?” It was just like Hange to pull those words out of his mouth anyway.

“If they weren’t constantly fighting for their lives, they might have ended up kissing.”

“And you’re not going to write a kissing scene?”

“They didn’t kiss.” Of course, they wouldn’t kiss during the war. They were fellow soldiers, subordinate and superior, it wouldn’t have been professional in the battlefield.

“Maybe after their relationship develops then.”

“It won’t develop.” The words came out automatically.

“Why not? What about after the war?” Hange suggested. Words like why always bring up more questions than answers and Levi found himself racking his brain for it.

The dreams and the memories or as Hange liked to call it, bouts of inspiration, came in images and scenes and sometimes pieces of information. From what he could tell, Hange and Levi had a strong bond and it would have only been natural that they had stayed close long after the war ended.

And a kiss probably wouldn’t have been too far off. _But why didn’t they kiss? Why didn’t their relationship develop?_ Levi asked himself, as his mind caught up to the words he said.

Maybe because the war hadn't ended yet. But after that there should be potential to develop.

With time, Levi had started to realize a pattern to the dreams though. The answers to the questions came gradually. They came in meetings, conversations and dreams. If he waited patiently, if he just opened up, those questions would be answered right?

Before Levi even noticed it, he had settled on the bed next to her and had fallen asleep to those questions. His brain chose those moments in between the sleeping and waking world to go through the voices and visions that went through him in that split second kiss.

One day in the barracks, he had overheard three of his squad members talking.

_“You know I’ve been working with the commander closely right?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“After the meetings, Levi always stays in the room with her and every time I see them together. I can’t help but think, there might be something between them.”_

_“Maybe you’re just overanalyzing it. You **do** analyze a lot_

_“Hey, he was right about the titan shifters and their locations back in Shiganshina."_

_“We’re talking about romance here, not military intelligence. Besides, can you even imagine the captain and commander kissing?”_

_“Just because you can’t get a girl with your horse face.”_


	10. Chapter 10

As Levi soon found out, Hange kept a folder online tagged ‘Levi Ackerman.’

The oldest pictures were dated more than three years ago and the first had been one of his cool down after his performance at his first tournament. There was variety in the pictures and they covered everything, all the way from warming up on the bench, positioning himself to run and those few moments right after launching himself in the air to the peak of his jump. She had even snuck pictures of his interviews.

The first time he opened it, he had first checked the dates to make sure he hadn’t been dreaming or assuming she of all people had been a fan. The weirdly strong emotions he had felt at the realization of the existence of such a folder had only made him all the more vulnerable and the last thing he had wanted to do was an act on an illusion or trick of the mind.

The experiences he had on the field clearing jump after jump had become routine over the five year period. Despite the changes among the faces in the crowd, the cheers that had only been getting louder and louder and of course, the oval that changed with the venue, sometimes the only thing Levi did remember was the blue sky staring him down and gravity pulling from behind.

Maybe that was why he had ended up in a state of disbelief the first time she had shown it to him.

 _How did you not notice her?_ Levi was sure he wouldn’t have anyway. She was a stranger, one stranger in a crowd of people. Although she may have been one unchanging face in a crowd of thousands of changing faces, she was still a stranger to him. And strangers just tended to blend in more easily.

A valid point. Yet the regret and frustration were still fresh inside him despite it having been weeks since she first gave him access to that folder

She had first showed it to him the morning after that eventful night, after having dealt with a hungover Nanaba. It was only in the evening that day after Hange had escorted her three friends to the station did she sit next to him on the bed and scroll through the pictures herself with Levi right beside her. Naturally, she was still hesitant to show that side of her, she scrolled a bit too slow at times, while a bit too fast at other times.

For a while their roles were reversed and Levi found himself prodding Hange for more details. Eventually, she did share the link to the folder in exchange for links to his story and Levi was quick to comply. They were both exposed anyway, there was no need for any more secrets between them. Only one condition that had seemed a little too frivolous at first glance, yet somehow Levi understood it.

Hange requested that he go through the pictures when she wasn’t around. And soon after she requested it, Levi realized he preferred that too. Despite the fact that he did trust her not to judge whatever she may find on the folders, there still existed an uneasiness at baring one’s heart out to someone in words one couldn’t control anymore having written the stories out too long ago.

Consequently, he requested the same thing from her. _Do not read it while I’m around._ When he told her the stories, he at least had control of his tones, his diction and the packaging of the overall story. Watching her read them, he knew he would find himself doubting the words he had written while at the same time vacillating between decisions to correct his previous writings or let her read. The constant self consciousness that came with the second option had just been too stressful of a prospect. He decided himself, he would rather have full control of the exposition or none at all.

The decision to have no control and no input, to be absent when he bares his heart out was not easy to make. And he continued to feel the traces of that struggle in the way he so easily lost focus and ended up mindlessly scrolling through the folder. His mind had shifted to other things more specifically the prospect of whether or not Hange was doing the same thing then and there.

She was only a phone call away. He could ask. But it had just seemed idiotic. Of course she wouldn’t be checking on it, she had been cramming for an exam that morning in between preparing for her mid semester thesis presentation. She hadn’t even bothered to say any greeting but an ‘I’ll follow’ before he left for the therapist that morning.

He looked through the messages in the waiting room, and up at the time displayed on the upper right part of the screen.

 _9:43_. She was still in the middle of her exam. She won’t be checking on it.

Levi looked at the ceiling above him, allowing the plain white view above him to ease him back to his reality. How long had he been staring at the phone? He closely felt for the aches and discomforts around his body. The dull soreness that made itself known as he stared up at the white ceiling above him only served as a reminder that he had been a little too exposed to quick scrolls and the unnatural glare of his phone for a potentially unhealthy amount of time.

It was his first physical therapy session and Hange had pointed out that he should be early just in case. Consequently, he had shown up at 8:30 for a session at ten.

 _Just in case you get lost. Just in case there is paperwork which still needs to be filled._ Hange would have done the paperwork already. He had ended up clocking that little doubt and that need for a little prophylactic thinking to caution on their end. First times tended to make people a little more cautious. And more importantly, what else was there to do on a Saturday morning other than sleep in?

Either way, that long wait had left him with eyes a little too tired yet at the same time, he was bored out of his wits. He looked around the waiting room finding something else to entertain himself with.

_I only have seventeen more minutes to kill. It shouldn’t be too hard._

The atmosphere of the waiting room was nothing like getting lost in nature or on the road. It was stark white, bleak and a little too rehearsed. In other words, it lacked dynamic and consequently. it was too boring to find any amusement in. Of course, they wouldn’t want to stress out any patients with anything too fancy or overwhelming. Yet, the only thing which Levi could have found worth giving more than a passing thought to were the people around him.

And only when Levi started focusing instead on the people and not on the off-white plastered walls of the waiting room, he somehow was able to distract himself from the dragging motions of time.

There was an old man with a knee brace. A middle aged man with an arm in a sling and a girl with a casted right leg. There were others who could have passed up for nothing more than a visitor, until they stood up and Levi noticed in their gait the slight hesitancy to put one foot in front of the other. A small detail which Levi probably wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t looking for it then.

As he preoccupied himself and reflected over the small details that could have told stories of the people around him, that natural reflection to one own’s self had him a little too focused, a little too fixated.

The door to the waiting room slammed behind him and the trance disappeared as quickly as it came and as silently as a bubble that had just been popped.

Levi found himself irritably following the sound of the footsteps that came right after the slam of the door. It reverberated across the quiet and tense room, so loudly that if Levi did look around him, he would have realized he wasn’t the only one who had been so abruptly disturbed by it.

“Aaaand... My rounds are over for today,” The man said looking not at all guilty for that rude awakening. He wouldn’t have known anyway, and as Levi looked towards the front where the man had settled by the nurse’s desk, he might just have been the only one in the room rudely awakened by that sound.

“Ah, Doctor Jaeger, That was quick,” the nurse commented a little too pleasantly for Levi’s taste.

“Not too busy of a morning.” The man said, or as Levi soon deduced, was Mr. Jaeger. He recognized that irritating voice and as he looked up at the man, taking in the gruff features, the blond hair and beard and the rounded glasses, he quickly grasped for the name.

 _Zeke Jaeger._ He hadn’t even said the name out loud just yet, but somehow he tasted venom. Levi though had enough awareness of his surroundings and his own ability to quickly yet correctly guess names to have kept silent. Regardless, he continued to watch as Zeke lowered his voice, possibly whispering something about going out for a drink and some dinner with the nurse in front of him. He found himself silently judging that audacious invasion of privacy as Zeke looked over at whatever paper was on the teacher’s desk.

_Ackerman?_

If Levi had actually been a little more aware of his surroundings, he would have realized Zeke did not at all say the name loud enough for him to hear. It was the result of Levi having watched too closely as Zeke enunciated those syllables, having noticed as the nurse made eye contact with him and having heard peppers of conversations about a jumper and an injury.

“Oh… An Ackerman? Who does high jumps?.” Zeke confirmed it himself, as he once again spoke a few decibels louder, obviously with the intention of making himself heard.

It wasn’t anything new. The past few months, Levi started to realize that at the least, many people in the local scene were familiar with him.

“My brother’s best friend is an Ackerman too and she started jumping recently.”

“I don’t have any relatives who jump,” Levi answered, in an attempt to shoot that attempt of a friendly interaction down.

Zeke stared at him, looking surprised. “You sure? With how quickly she picked it up, I thought she should have been related to you.”

Levi kept silent, making no effort to look open at all to conversation. Somehow, Zeke didn’t seem to get the hint.

“She’s been sweeping their interhigh competitions since the start of autumn… With the pace at which she’s going, she might even replace you.”

Levi had gotten used to those types of comments, hearing them as whispers the few times he went out, seeing them on a few forums as people discussed his injuries. He shouldn’t have been at all bothered by the statement, having shifted his attention in life to things which weren’t jumping

The blond man in front of him had been crass and blunt and Levi was starting to feel the beginnings of a bad mood. The irritability only worsened even as Levi tuned out the blond doctor. His mind went elsewhere, as he instead decided to seethe silently at the insensitivity of that statement.

* * *

Eventually Levi did get a break from that one-sided conversation. But the countdown to that break was slow and painful. He only noticed as he struggled under the trappings of that long and excruciating wait how long it really took for minutes to count down on a digital clock.

An eternity could have passed before Levi was called from the waiting room. As soon as the clock struck ten, Levi could not help but be more than slightly annoyed that she had been late.

 _If you’re early then you’re on time. If you’re on time, then you’re late._ Any other day, Levi would have acknowledged the hypocrisy of that statement since although he was always early to training, he was never that religious when it came to academics. Having just bounced back from such an excruciating exchange with Zeke though, everything had just been pissing him off more than necessary.

It was almost remarkable how he managed to nod in return at the woman who met him at the exit of the waiting room. But Levi soon realized, as the anger quickly dissipated from inside him, she seemed like an old friend more than a stranger and like for all people, as long as there was history between them, he could save a little more patience points.

The woman who helped him up and led him to the room ahead was shorter than him yet had a way of handling herself that made Levi guess that she was at the least, a university student.

Levi didn’t need to guess anything else. Somehow, her name, her personality and the familiarity had all been somewhere in his head.

She cocked her head to one side in greeting and spoke up. “You can call me---”

“Petra,” Levi said. Somehow, he just knew her name. He had been inclined to complete that statement, only to make more real the nagging feeling in his head as soon as he had noticed her enter the room.

Petra’s eyes widened in shock. “Yes, how did you know?”

“It’s on your nametag,” Levi answered almost automatically, thanking the heavens she _was_ wearing a nametag.

“Yeah, my bad. I get a little absent minded at times,” Petra patted her own head and gave Levi a wry smile.

Petra was hospitable. And when Levi thought that exact statement, he couldn't help but think how the word 'hospitable' had fit her so well. It was in her presence. She had this special talent, of finding ways at least to add color to the stark white hospital walls and the overly sanitized tiled floors underneath.

It could have been the tone or it could have been her word choice as she rattled off what could have been an outline of his physical therapy regime. As Levi did figure out, it could possibly have been the unique enthusiasm she had towards the whole patient recovery process

"So you're my physical therapist?" Levi asked. He never really did pick up what she was saying. He had heard enough about leg raises, timings on when to remove casts and knee bends that he at least guessed she knew enough about them to be one.

Petra though was quick to shake her head. "No actually. After college, I have plans of taking the exam. Then after that, I’ll be a physical therapist. I’m just taking advantage of this internship to learn more about the occupation.”

“It suits you,” Levi said. He kept his own comments brief. At that point, he did start to lose a little bit of awareness of his surroundings. His thoughts flew slowly back to his dreams.

Those first two encounters in the hospital had been two missing puzzle pieces. The stories had been an incomplete puzzle set of words and pictures and as he put it all together in his head, he couldn’t help but note how vivid the memories actually were. It took all his strength not to react, not to bolt out then and there, and go back home, to fill in the gaps on his laptop.

He put two names on his phone.

 _Zeke Jaeger. Petra Ral._ Levi could have sworn there was more to remember and to write about.

And who did Zeke mention then? _The other Ackerman? The other jumper?_

The dreams were faint, as faint as the image an incomplete puzzle would make. Some parts were clear and vivid like a scenery behind a newly cleaned window. Others were hazy, his mind having filled up those gaps with blurry images. But the other Ackerman was there, and she moved fast enough to justify those blurs in the scene. Back when they fought the war, she flew in those cables much faster than he and Hange had.

_I am strong. I am stronger than all of you._

* * *

The pain that came with his first physical therapy session was excruciating and it only served to further aggravate the anguish and his eagerness to get home before the sceneries in his head faded into faint memories of something else.

He managed at least to keep himself in a good in-between, by repeating the mantra of that other Ackerman to himself as he went through each and every exercise.

They had started off slow, as slow as a walk in the park maybe, a few stretches here and there. While doing some of the stretches and the warm ups, he did wonder if he had attended the right therapy session. Some of the warm up exercises had nothing to do with his knee after all.

The actual challenge came when Petra and the physical therapist he had failed to get the name of, had him sit down. As soon as Petra unwrapped the brace and pulled it from underneath him, Levi felt the weight of his injury almost instantly. It didn’t help at all that he was looking right at it.

“We’re going to try bending it a bit. Maybe put some weight on it if we have some extra time” The physical therapist’s words felt ominous.

The surgical scars and the healed wounds on his knees from more than two months ago only served to rattle Levi a little more. He had avoided looking at the scars many times before during meetings with Erwin and Hange. The few times Hange did pull and prod at it, he had it stretched out on some pillow.

It was fragile. And it felt unnatural. There in front of him then, it was dangling from the exam table, gravity pulling it down from underneath. Levi swore that if he tried hard enough he probably could imagine it completely disconnecting from his body at that moment. And maybe if he did move it, attempt to stand up without the confines of a knee brace as support, it might just fall off.

“Hey, it happens to the best of us,” Petra said.

 _No, it doesn’t happen to the best of us._ In the room at least, there were at least five other people struggling to do something so simple as to bend a knee. But Levi could have sworn, in the outside world he was surrounded by people who wouldn’t think twice about bending their knee.

“Just bend it as far as you feel comfortable.” Bullshit directions. Levi had to admit, he wasn’t comfortable having it bend at all. Just the sensation of having it dangle so easily in the air, at the mercy of gravity underneath was already unsettling.

Was it a challenge then? To get it to bend as far as he could?

The directions of the therapist were flawed and Levi naturally opted for a flawed response as well. The process of bending his knee had been slow and excruciating. Levi found himself closing his eyes a few times, finding some sort of a rhythm in the faint sounds of the heater in the room, the murmurs from all the way across the room.

Or maybe a mantra? From someone a little too familiar. _I am strong. Stronger than all of you._ Another Ackerman.

And the way Zeke had mentioned it was grating. _Was it a challenge? A threat? Was it supposed to be pushing him to go further?_

It could have been Zeke or it could have been that phantom Ackerman that had been a motivation at that moment. But something then had Levi’s heart racing, his mind going in circles.

 _I’m strong too. I’ll get out of this rut._ He thought to himself, a weak yet still effective act of protest. It worked both as a catalyst for a burst of motivation and an odd source of rhythm. The flexibility of bending came in slow, steady but continued attempts. The rush of adrenaline came halfway through.

A few minutes later, he was sweating and maybe he had been shaking a bit before that. When Petra had mentioned the optimistic progress and the plan to at least attempt to put weight on his bum knee, Levi was quick to comply.

 _And maybe a little too reckless._ They had least helped him next to a wall, a good place at least to lean his body in the off chance he did lose control.

“One foot forward then one back.” The therapist guided.

As he watched the therapist simulate that same position, Levi quickly followed suit. He remembered, he had put some weight on his leg. Back then the brace had kept his knee stable.

At that moment, the brace was off, and it would be his bum knee, exhausted from the prior exercises taking the full weight.

 _I’m strong._ Levi repeated to himself. Bending wasn’t an issue before. He had been bending his knees, possibly before he even knew how to walk. It should have been nothing, The excitement of a while ago, the adrenaline rush, pushed him further. It had him so seamlessly balancing the weight from the back of his foot, to the foot in front.

And maybe his knee had been bending farther in, the weight of his body on it. Somewhere along the way he did start to feel the beginnings of a dull pain.

 _I’m strong._ To keep going, Levi had to find an escape. _Stronger than all of you._ It was easy at least, to leave the movements to his procedural memory as he distracted himself with his own musings, willing himself not to forget what he had wished to write down.

_Where did they all fit? The Beast Titan… The Survey Corps… The War… The Alliance?_

“Levi, I’m sorry I’m late. The test ended later than I expected…” She came as a faint voice, but Levi was too far gone to hear it.

He had only felt her presence then, when the physical therapist called a break, when he had collapsed on the floor in exhaustion, his knee throbbing, his breaths coming in heaves. He only realized she had been watching for a good long while when he looked up to see the concern etched in her face as he caught her gaze.

“I’m fine…” He at least managed to say that much before he closed his eyes, allowing that few minutes of rest to gather his thoughts and steady his breaths.

“You shouldn’t have pushed yourself too hard. This is just your first session,” Hange said from right next to him.

He still had enough energy to process those words at least.

* * *

That night, Levi gripped his dream catcher a little tighter and pressed it close to the back of his phone as he scrolled through google links on _the other_ _Ackerman._

It hadn’t been hard to find her at all. Zeke’s tirade that morning had been more than a guide enough.

 _High school. Ackerman. High Jump._ Those were the only three keywords he needed to figure out the whole name of that missing Ackerman. For a moment, he had expected to find his own articles, and had braced himself for the pain of sifting through old articles about himself in between looking at hers.

It turned out Mikasa Ackerman had been the talk of the high school high jumping scene for a while, and she had been the topic of at least 90% of the articles he was scrolling through on Google.

A few times they did allude to the other Ackerman. The older articles heralded her as a successor to the rookie Levi Ackerman, the newer ones that were dated past his injury called her the brand new Ackerman, a replacement.

 _A replacement to damaged goods._ Levi had to add that part himself, an attempt to make a joke out of his shitty situation as he closed that last article. “Mikasa Ackerman,” Levi repeated those words so quietly to himself as he dropped the dreamcatcher haphazardly onto the table in front of him. It had been useless at that moment. Or maybe at the least it had been the reason he felt a little too frustrated at having looked through too many articles that evening.

He looked to Hange who was sitting on the dining table, looking deep in thought on something on her laptop. Mid semester presentations for her thesis proposal were coming up, along with a few new exams next week. She had been conscious enough to point that out at least and Levi happily gave her the space she needed.

The turmoil inside him at first seemed difficult to pacify. Just watching Hange so focused and deep in thought had helped somehow quell whatever unresolved tensions and feelings were settling in his stomach then.

Maybe if he talked to her, the tensions might just disappear altogether. Levi deemed it worth the effort at least. “Hange? You okay?” He asked

Hange’s head shot up and she looked straight at him almost instantly. “Sorry, how long were you calling me? I’ve just been a little too focused on my exam on Monday and the thesis presentations on Wednesday… I don’t think I’ve been in the right mind for a while…”

Levi saw it in the way she looked at him, she hadn’t been focusing on his eyes. It was as if she were still probably seeing whatever words or numbers she was studying. She had been like that the past week since the line up of the thesis presentations were released along with the midterms schedules for all the exams.

Their kiss, their one night in the bedroom almost forgotten. Levi was sure though there was something that had been bothering her, maybe something that extended beyond acads.

 _I can ask about that after finals._ Levi thought to himself, pushing aside that bout of concern. He could start with a light question at least, which didn’t involve Hange too much. “Have you heard of Mikasa Ackerman?”

“Mikasa Ackerman? The high school high jumper?” Hange asked. “Maybe I have been following her too… Lately...”

“She’s really good apparently.”

“Her jumping positions reminded me a lot of yours, so she had been fun to watch. I always did want to ask… Is she related to you? I did some research but I don’t see much which connect you both other than a few articles comparing you as jumpers and maybe speculating a relationship.”

Levi shook his head. “I never heard of her… Until today… A doctor mentioned her back in the hospital before my therapy session.”

“She only started making waves last month when her school made it to the regional competitions. No one really follows the district and the interschools… And apparently she only started jumping recently, during summer and she only started breaking records during the regionals,” Hange said. “That is… According to what I’ve read up on her.”

“So, you have been following her?”

“I still watch videos during study breaks,” Hange admitted. “And she just broke a few records a few weeks ago, of course they’d show up in my feed.”

“And you didn’t feel the need to ask me about it before? About an Ackerman doing the same jumping positions I did? You didn’t want to talk about it?”

“I thought of asking you about it maybe after exams. Besides, do you want to talk about jumping? After everything that happened?”

Levi put his phone down beside him and looked up at the ceiling above him. Of course he wouldn’t have heard of her until then, he had purged himself of all track and field news since the injury. The tournament with Nanaba and Mike and the round of research on Mikasa have been two exceptions and the feelings after that had only reminded him why he had spent his days actively making the effort _not_ to think of the life he used to have. "I told you I'm fine," he said. He half meant that part at least, the writing had helped.

"No you aren't.”

Levi found himself shocked by how certain Hange’s tone had been. And for a second, maybe he had been a little irritated at the audacity of it all. Who was she to assume how he felt? But the surprise and the irritability had him silent and listening. Hange always had a reason for her conclusions. She never made assumptions so easily, he had known her enough lifetimes to be sure of that.

“There's a certain sadness to knowing you can't do what you used to before.” Hange continued. “I think everyone feels it, even a bit." 

"A certain... sadness?" Levi asked. 

"Wait, that does sound vague... Lemme think of an example." Hange paused for a second, looking up in thought. "Like maybe if you imagine people who’ve been skating or people who've been playing instruments their whole childhood. When they stop training or practicing these things altogether, these people can feel themselves lose their motor skills or their thinking skills that got them jumping double axels or playing arpeggios or pulling off vibratos like they’re second nature. And when they come back to it years later, I’m sure everyone feels the sadness or some sort of a frustration, looking back at their old self and processing the realization that they can’t bring their body or their mind to do something as effortlessly as they had done it many years before. Processing how they ended up so weak, so stupid after abandoning their old passions for so long."

“What if I’m an exception?” Levi challenged, still a little annoyed at such an assumption and at such a long unsettling tirade.

Hange shook her head. “You’re not. For a while, I wanted to entertain the possibility that maybe you and I are exceptions, maybe we can easily jump from one passion to another. When I was watching you during therapy though. I saw the terror in your eyes, the frustration, the sadness. ‘Why isn’t my body moving the same way it used to?’ Maybe you don’t want to think back to jumping because you don’t want to see how quickly your body has forgotten the motions, how quickly it had lost the flexibility and the strength to carry you over the two meter bars…” Hange trailed off. She avoided his gaze and for a while she had been staring at the blank wall in front of her. For a second after that, she did look to him, and there was a glint of realization in that. Realization at what she had just implied possibly. "But you know what, you might just be an exception. Maybe I’m just projecting." Hange added a second later.

Levi was sure though from the quick change of tone that accompanied those last words that Hange probably didn't mean it. On top of that, having heard Hange's small lecture, Levi almost immediately realized he wasn't at all an exception. 

Her voice had been light as she mentioned that last sentence. It could have been a thoughtless comment. Hange didn’t make too many thoughtless comments though. “Projecting?” Levi asked.

Hange let out a short light laugh “I’m talking too much, I should go back to work…” Her words seemed like a band-aid, a lazy coverup for whatever emotions had supported such a tirade in the first place. 

_Projecting?_ There was a reason behind that word use and Levi was more than eager to press on it. 

Hange wasn’t listening anymore though. She was buried once again in whatever subject she had chosen to study for that night. She was in work mode again and she had gotten back to that mode as quickly as she had fallen out of it.

 _All questions can wait until after her exam week._ Levi told himself. The word ‘projecting’ had stayed though. Hange’s words had left its mark and maybe it did have Levi reflecting on his own feelings, his own fear and his own frustrations at his regressing skills, the painful awareness of his body that was slowly forgetting the motions he had built over years. At the end of that tunnel of reflection, he did end up thinking back to that word.

 _Projecting._ She had to be feeling something for herself to say something like that right?

_Hange what are you projecting?_

And that at least distracted Levi enough, enough for him to ignore the dull pain in his left knee, channel his focus elsewhere. The next few days, having been left alone in the apartment while Hange went about classes, lab work and library visits, Levi did manage to channel his energies to academics or to filling his gaps in his own stories: Levi Special Squad, the Beast Titan and something about some new rookies in the survey corps.

The pain in his knee never left though. It was nagging and annoying like a cavity. It was a pain Levi had assumed would disappear in time. His left knee had always been painful since the injury.

Yet, maybe his left knee had started to get a little frustrated at Levi’s negligence. Maybe it had started to get angry. It was a creature and Levi soon realized, it was a monster that demanded attention.

The night it demanded his attention so stubbornly, so angrily., it did it through sharp pains that coursed through him like bolts of electricity, it did it through a crushing sensation that left Levi almost unable to breathe.

And maybe it did have Levi hallucinating----Or could it have been dreaming--- of having saved one of his soldiers from being eaten by a titan.

* * *

“Connie!

_“Captain!”_

In his dreams, he had been too out of breath, or maybe a little too distracted to have reacted at the crushing pain that had spread through him like bolts of lightning. The dream was hazy that Levi doubted whether he had been completely rooted in anything or not.

He had been flying. He had been in pain. And he had been pushing past the pain, slicing at a titan in every direction. And when he had seen one of his soldiers unconscious, about to be eaten by a titan, he had jumped in between the titan and the soldier so instinctively, so desperately that the in-between had been a blur. He found himself in the midst of an excruciatingly painful ordeal. He gritted his teeth, biting back any attempt to scream. For god knows if he screamed, he might just run out of energy, he might just pass out.

When he woke up to the dark room though, he processed almost naturally the fact that the circumstances his reality had offered him were different. The view in the middle of the night, the faint sound of cars had been different. He wasn’t in a battle field and as if his body had been completely aware of that, it did push past his attempts to subdue any reaction.

Even before he realized it though, he had been screaming. Only when his throat burned and the sounds faded into a whimper, only when the tears started to run down his face, only when he closed his eyes and keeled over, a pathetic reaction to the bombardment of stimuli, did Levi realize the pain of having his leg almost bitten off by a titan was still there.

“Levi! I’m here. What’s going on? Are you okay?” Hange was right next to him. Beyond the pain, that was all he could process.

Hange hadn’t been there in the dream. God knows where Hange had been when he was flying from titan to titan. God knows where Hange had been when he found himself, jumping in between his fellow soldier and the titan that had lunged to eat him.

And god, it was painful. Even past the dream, even when he started to realize that Hange was right next to him at least in the dark room at 3am. The pain stayed and it was crushing his knee, it was leaving him unable to even take any sort of a decent breath, his own coping mechanism reduced to ragged breaths in between tears.

“Levi, breathe…”

How pathetic where his own breaths sounding for Hange to have to coach him like that?

“Oh god, Levi, we might have to get you to a hospital?”

How pathetic did he look for Hange to have to suggest a hospital visit? When she helped him up at least, when she slung her free arm over his shoulder and helped him to a sitting position, he did at least feel the unnatural weight on his left knee. _What was going on?_

Everything after that, came as a hazy dream. As hazy as the fight against the many unnatural looking titans. In that dream, Hange had been absent for some reason he could not yet comprehend. And Levi found himself trying to push it away, instead focusing on the Hange in front of him who had put a blanket over him, who had dialed a number on her phone and who was rattling off medical jargon to someone on the phone.

“Erwin… I…” _Why would you need to call Erwin at three in the morning?_

After that, Hange had helped put a hoodie over him, she had called one more number. And within a few minutes, Levi found himself lying down on a taxi, half conscious, only hanging on by a thread at the view of Hange under the dim light of the taxi and the city lights.

Somehow, he was terrified of falling asleep again. Hange hadn’t been there in the dream. And she might just disappear if he closed his eyes. As he unwillingly held on to the crushing pain in his knee and the view of Hange who sat next to him on the taxi, he was awake. Only barely, but barely was enough to not fall into another world of dreams, a world of wars and a state of complete chaos and confusion.

Eventually, he lost consciousness but it had been a gradual process.

He had lost some sense of time along the way, his body having been too focused on Hange. The darkness in the taxi had quickly shifted to the stark white of the hospital as he was helped onto a stretcher. Then along the way, he may have heard Erwin’s voice rattling off something about a swelling knee that was crushing his joints and a knee aspiration.

Then there was something about painkillers, an IV, a slight pain in his hand before everything enveloped him again. Maybe at his peripherals, Hange had been by his bedside.

It was a huge improvement at least from the messages of his own dreams. And maybe it was relief that finally had him letting go of his tight yet weak grip on reality. The crushing pain on his knee hadn’t been from a titan biting it off. Hange’s absence in the war had only been a dream.

The last few things he had processed then before completely letting the darkness enveloped him, may have been the sound of a laptop opening next to him, a few wires pattering on the floor below, the sound of the mouse and finally, the relaxing rhythmic clacking of the keyboard..

Hange was right next to him and she wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

* * *

“Sorry.” It came out as a croak but Levi was still hoping she heard it. Despite the haziness of the first few moments as he opened his eyes to the light streaming into the hospital room, despite the discomfort which came with a dry throat, it had been Levi’s first instinct to apologize.

Hange looked worse off than last night. He at least picked up enough images of her to know that there was a stark difference between the Hange of a few hours ago and the Hange then. The laptop hadn’t moved, it was still on the table next to his bedside, just like he had guessed it to be having fallen unconscious to the sound of the clacking of the keyboard.

Right then and there, Hange’s hair fell in chaotic waves, her glasses askew. And compared to last night where he saw panic, in front of him, he saw calm etched on her face, an ominous calm that somehow seemed even more alarming.

“Hange,” Levi said a little louder. The concern he felt only gave him the motivation to push past the discomfort of having just woken up. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you saying sorry? Hadn’t everything to this point been my fault?” Hange’s voice was soft, reflecting the ominous calm. It was cold, maybe even frozen. “"The reason the fluid built up in your knee was overexertion apparently. They’re guessing it was the physical therapy session last Saturday." Hange looked away. "I can't help but think... If I didn’t bring you to the tournament or talked to you about jumping , maybe you wouldn’t have pushed yourself too hard."

Levi had listened closely and he could have sworn he heard a crack in her voice. “But the fluid is gone right?” He asked. He noted that his knee was numb and to his relief, the pain had devolved into a dull ache, similar to the one he had been dealing with the past month. Not at all as alarming as it had been the night before.

Hange shrugged. “Maybe it’s the painkillers or maybe it’s the fact that they drained the wound. But don’t count your eggs before they even hatch. Your back to square one. All progress, out the window. Fuck this. Fuck all this. And you wouldn’t have been in this damn situation if he hadn’t fucked up way too many times. Was I pressuring you to jump? Was I pressuring you to recover quicker? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned Elijah, or maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned MIkasa? Maybe I shouldn’t have let you go to that fucking meet in the first place.”

Levi kept quiet. Watching what had been Hange, leaving her laptop open on the table, watching her pace around the room, avoiding his gaze as she fell into her soft tirade had been unsettling. Even he couldn’t tell how it was making him feel. “It’s over. It happened. So many things had happened at once, it couldn’t have been anyone’s fault.”

“Fucking hell Levi, when I’m supposed to be writing about your injury, when I’m supposed to be writing every single bout of mini progress, writing out the mechanics of the injury… I can’t help but see… you were in no condition to jump. You were exhausted, your wounds from the first time we met were far from healed. But for fuck’s sake, if I had told you to wait it out a week, instead of letting you do jump after jump, maybe you’d be in class right now or maybe you’d be preparing for your next tournament… I don’t wanna write this anymore. I don’t wanna reduce whatever is going on inside you to a fucking case study.” Hange slammed her hand on her keyboard, and sat so violently on the chair, she had pushed it a few inches back.

“You need to graduate,” Levi said. _What will Erwin think? What will your parents think?_

“At this point, who cares? I’m miserable. I can’t fucking get anything written. I write a paragraph, I get self conscious and I delete it. I write out my interpretation of the numbers, of my findings, my gut wrenches then I delete it again."

“Take a break?” Levi weakly suggested.

Hange had laughed at that. The reaction came out of nowhere and Levi found himself speechless and maybe a little confused. _Take a break?_ That had seemed like a natural suggestion. He had at least spent a good few seconds thinking in between listening to Hange’s rant to have come up with such a suggestion.

Either way, from the way Hange had laughed it off and slammed her laptop close, from the way she had sat back on the chair and looked at nothing in particular, the way she had avoided his gaze through the whole tirade and the fit that had followed, Levi was sure that had been the wrong thing to say.

A little ashamed at his own ability to have come up with something a little more comforting, Levi kept quiet. And for a second, he looked up at the own ceiling above him, and maybe distracted himself by appreciating the view from the wide hospital window, following the birds that were doing some sort of dance in the sky

For a moment, he did forget about Hange. She hadn’t helped at all to make herself any memorable, having kept silent.

The silence in that moment had been too peaceful, had been too otherworldly that it was only natural that it would be broken by even the softest and steadiest things.

Like an off-rhythm knock on the door.

“Hange?”

Levi recognized the voice even before his head popped up from behind the slightly opened door. “Moblit?”

Levi looked towards Hange. The latter sat unmoving on her seat, her head bowed down, her face unreadable. Even as Moblit opened the door a little wider and approached her, she hadn’t moved at all or even looked back to greet him. Levi bent over to get a better look at her and saw panic. A type of panic he had never seen before. Panic, confusion, maybe a little urgency. “Hange? Moblit’s here.” Levi managed to say. He kept his voice gentle, a natural gesture having to process Hange’s face at that moment.

“Hey Hange. Erwin told me you’d be here. The others were worried about you--- I was worried about you. You’re supposed to be presenting now."

Hange stayed silent. From what Levi could see, her face was frozen. Was that panic? Shock?

Moblit continued. "I explained your situation… They said they could push it back until this afternoon...You think you can make it?" Moblit paused as he got closer to her, as if waiting for her to say something. He had his phone out,as if ready to call the panelists at any moment.

"Hange. Go to the presentation," Levi said. It was difficult to bend over and make eye contact with her with her head bent down, her eyes downcast. He kept his words firm, hoping at least that was enough to reach her.

“I can’t…” She managed to say. She left her mouth half open, as if she had expected to say something after. She looked back up at Levi, then bit her lip. Levi could have sworn that was the first time he had seen her in such a loss of words yet at the same time, struggling to get something out.

“Hange, go. I’ll be fine…”

“You don’t understand, I can’t… present.”

“Hey, I’ll help you set up. We have until tonight.” Moblit scooched beside her on the table and typed out her password.

“No, you don’t get it, I have nothing…”

“Hey, I’ll help you get a powerpoint. We can revise your manuscript together. That’s what friends are for,” Moblit pressed as he pushed the laptop towards Hange. “Come on, type out your password.”

“No Moblit, there’s nothing in here. It’s over. I’ll try again next year.”

“It’s too early to give up Hange, remember how fast you got Elijah’s data processed? It helped me a lot.”

“You don’t get it do you?” Hange pulled the laptop towards her and angrily typed what could have been the password. The laptop booted to life and from where he sat, Levi made out the characteristic log in tone of the computer. “There’s nothing in the document. Just the introduction. No preliminary results. No observations. **Nothing.** ”

Levi couldn’t see the screen from where he sat. But he did see the flashes of a changing screen through Moblit’s eyes. He could guess the results from the way Moblit’s jaw dropped and the way Hange just avoided both their gazes, keeping her eyes downcast.

Levi maneuvered himself to the side of the bed, getting Hange’s laptop at arm’s reach. His leg protested the action but that was the last thing on his mind. God forbid, what Moblit was seeing at that moment could have been Levi’s first assumption.

_Hange… Didn’t you spend hours in the library getting everything written out?_

_Didn’t you spend whole days outside working in the lab?_

_Didn’t I fall asleep every night to the angry clacking of the keyboard?_

_Didn’t I wake up in the middle of the night to you in the dining room writing out your thesis?_

She had been writing at least. The introduction, the review of related literature were all filled out. The methodology had been filled out. It was a far cry though from what she had made in high school. Each part had been furnished with links to sources, half completed sentences and maybe a few question marks here and there.

The observations and the results and discussions though, were all blank.

“Hange… You….” _What were you doing? This can’t be it._ Levi didn’t even know if he had said that last part out loud. His brain was on overdrive trying to prove his own quick conclusion wrong. He navigated through old versions of the document. His hands were quick, maybe they had been moving on their own and the PC couldn’t catch up.

A few times, Levi found himself tapping impatiently on the keyboard as the laptop loaded each version.

More links, more half completed sentences, and a very empty observations and results section. “We can get something written right? Help make a powerpoint? If we work together, we could get something presentable." 

Moblit shook his head. He bent down next to Hange and spoke softly. “Does Erwin know about this?”

“I told him to just leave it to me… But I can’t. I can’t write this anymore.” Hange shook her head as she looked up at Moblit then up at him. There was some sort of a smile of resignation plastered on her face, reminiscent of the laugh of only a few moments ago.

_That was what the laugh had meant when he had suggested the break._

Of course, she would laugh. There was no time for breaks. There was no time for work either. Hange was royally fucked.

Moblit left the room, neither Levi nor Hange asked for what. For a few more minutes, maybe for even an hour longer while Hange had been in her catatonic state, Levi did continue to look through her drafts, see what kind of sense he could make of the half complete sentences and the links to journals in her document with his limited knowledge on human anatomy.

His background had him very much unready to complete a thesis proposal on a technical subject he studied nothing about, let alone in the span of a few hours. Having been pumped with painkillers and sleeping drought only an hour before, his brain was in no state either to bullshit what he could. Despite all his desperate attempts to make sense of it, to write out something coherent, he found himself converting it back to the state he and Moblit had found it in.

Levi closed the laptop slowly and pushed it towards Hange. He was surprised and a little relieved to find that she did pull her weight, setting the laptop back on the table next to his bed.

Hange smiled at Levi and spoke up. “I appreciate you trying to do all this Levi but… I’ve given up already. I’m not getting this thesis done.”

It was a pained smile. A smile of resignation. A smile that was so clearly telling him that he had definitely wasted those last few minutes pouring through the versions of her document for nothing.

Levi took a deep breath and spoke up. “Then what’s your plan now?”


	11. Chapter 11

“At this point, I feel like she needs to be here more than I do.”

“What makes you say that?”

Levi narrowed his eyes at her. How many times has Levi heard her say another variation of that since he had started the therapy sessions? “Weren't you just listening to my conversations a while ago?” Levi felt a burn in his throat as he spoke. And he started to wonder if he raised his voice a little too much or if he sounded a little too accusing.

_Of course she would be listening, that’s what she’s here to do right?_

Shela was sitting up a little straighter and had started to put on a little airs and a knowing look on her face. “Levi, you’ve been talking about her since we started this session. If I remember correctly, we organized these sessions for _you._ So it’s only natural that I ask how you feel right or what pushed you to say something like that right?"

“I’m worried,” Levi said. The answer was routine, expected. He didn’t have to think twice to ponder what problematic implications could come with such a statement.

“Worried about?”

“Her of course. Who else?”

“Yes, I understand. Being worried is admirable and I’m happy to be talking to someone with such a heart for others. For these therapy sessions though, could you think about yourself first?"

“Wouldn’t you rather I be selfless? The world would be a better place if everyone was more selfless.”

“Fix your own backyard. You’re not helping make the world a better place by neglecting yourself. If you don’t at least value yourself enough to take care of yourself first, you’re just gonna waste away into nothing in the process of trying to fix everyone else. You’ll help a lot more people if you find a balance between herself and others.”

"I should be telling that to her too."

Shela took in a deep breath and let it out a second later as a loud sigh of exasperation. She glanced at her watch before looking up at Levi again. “You have ten minutes to talk about Hange. Nothing more. After that, we talk about you, you haven’t even told me about your life before her since we got here.”

Levi shrugged. “Because everything started happening when I met her. If I hadn’t met her, I wouldn’t have gotten injured. If I didn’t get injured, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be busy training, Hange wouldn’t have had to change her thesis. Then she wouldn’t have ended up breaking down like that. In another universe, we’d probably be still on the right track now, she would have been making her thesis and I would have been joining competitions”

Shela shook her head, an incredulous look on her face. “You’ve been talking about what ifs since we started this session. All what ifs about Hange. And these what ifs aren’t doing anything to clean up either of your backyards. I wanna hear about something more concrete. What are the circumstances you two have to deal with? What’s your plan for dealing with them now?”

“My plan…” Levi trailed off as he racked his mind for something clear, something reasonable. He found himself thinking back to the many times he had asked Hange the same thing. His own ability to answer had him realizing something else. Maybe he was a hypocrite.

Shela cleared her throat. “Sorry, it just seems odd. It's a little uncharacteristic of you to regret like this.” Her voice softened and her face relaxed into something apologetic and not at all as tense as it had been a while ago.

Levi bit his lip at that last sentence. What did she know about him? How many sessions did they have? And he found himself looking straight up at the ceiling as he reflected on it. Was it really uncharacteristic of him to regret?

For the first time, he did look back at his life before Hange. Back then, he had been one to follow orders, one to take injuries or failing grades with a stride. He had even taken the struggles of building relationships that would eventually fade over the years as a fact of life.

All what ifs he had ever had had been because of Hange. The first time he had ever considered that hypothetical events in the past could exist, could be toyed with as part of one’s imagination, had been when he met Hange.

But why? Why was Hange making him regret? Why was someone he barely knew making him feel things he never felt before? Making him imagine other dimensions, other alternate universes where things could be worse, or where things could be better?

“You might be right,” Levi admitted. “Hange could be the reason I started to think like this. I don’t think I’ve ever thought of hypotheticals before her. But this is the first time my life has broken down like this. If these didn’t happen, if I were still jumping, I don’t think I would have thought this deeply into anything.

“Broken down? What makes you say that?” Shela asked, another vexing, repetitive yet routine question.

“Our lives are both shit now. I realized recently, I could have handled it, if it were just me, unable to jump. The only thing I actually regretted about all that is that I couldn’t be the one to make her happy. She liked watching jumps and I’ve been jumping long before I met her… There were so many things I could have done for her, so much untapped potential…” _Untapped potential with our relationship._ His mind stopped moving there, trying to process what his mouth had yet to justify as worth mentioning.

“But you were able to handle that part right? The injury? I can see you’re at least finding ways to cope,” Shela said, raising one eyebrow in observation. “Okay let me help you organize your thoughts about Hange. You’ve been talking about her in hypotheticals since the session started. You told me what happened, with her thesis, that she opened up about her regrets, her feelings of guilt but I wanna know. What’s the situation now with her? What is making you say your lives have ‘gone to shit’?”

“Hange…” Levi closed his eyes for a second, using that blank slate above him, the silence of the room and the whirring of the heater as some means of looking back at the past few days yet at the same time a rope to help keep his grip on reality still tight. “She’s working on stuff, I know she is. She’s been busy coordinating with Erwin and Moblit. And she’s been doing some studying and I know she’s trying to rebuild even after being disqualified from the thesis competition and after getting a failing grade for proposals. But what I don’t understand is why her parents had to be like that…” Levi trailed off, unable to make sense of the memories that clouded his mind. His mouth was running faster than his mind at that moment.

“Her parents?”

“They came to the apartment one day… I heard the conversations on the phone before that… Hange’s in deep shit with her parents about what happened with her thesis. Her parents were disappointed. Actually, I think they were angry. Hange asked me to stay for a while in a cafe when they visited the apartment. It looks like they are cutting off support.”

“Over a mistake like that,” Shela said, her voice cracked. And for a second, Levi could see a glimmer of vulnerability in her stoic and calm demeanor. “I've heard of Hange even before this, she was very academically inclined, well decorated and I knew some of these types of kids are products of strict parents but to think that Hange---”

“Hange hinted to it a few times. From what I know, her parents are loaded but strict. Hange consulted her parents a lot and it looked like she never made much decisions herself. It looks like she did a lot of stuff for her parents.”

“I know some parents really like to live their life through their kids. Now that you mentioned it, the few times I did meet Hange. She seemed subdued. Trapped maybe?”

“Trapped?” _You met Hange before?_ Levi thought to himself. He quickly remembered then. Of course she mentioned she had met him a few times through Erwin.

“I suspected she grew up in a type of household where her parents controlled her every move. I guess, hearing what happened to her… it just struck a chord in me. Sorry about this.”

 _What do you mean?_ Levi should have noticed it in the crack on her voice, but it was only he got tired of looking at the ceiling and looked instead to his side, catching her gaze did he realize she had one finger pressed below her eye, as if she had just patted a tear dry there, her clipboard haphazardly strewn on the table in front of her. She shook her head. “Sorry,I was a mom too, I know how it feels to love a child and I just can’t imagine deciding to cut off your child like that, over one small mistake.”

Levi’s eyes widened. He gave Shela a once over. He would have guessed she was at least in her mid twenties. If she hadn’t introduced herself as a therapist, he could have even assumed she was his age.

“You’re a mother?”

“Not now. A long time ago. I could have been one but…I made some mistakes. Bad things happened..” Shela had a far-off look in her eyes before she shook her head. “I digress. We shouldn’t be talking about my past here. But, I think I am starting to understand what exactly you two are facing. We have jumper extraordinaire Ackerman suddenly sidelined with an injury and we have genius Hange Zoe suddenly falling short of her goal, disowned by her parents over a breakdown. And suddenly your lives are falling into shit now right? If I use your exact words?”

Levi kept silent and continued to listen. He did agree. But at the same time, at that moment, when she was poking and prodding at emotions, pulling out so conveniently his insecurities, his emotions, did he want to so easily lay them out when he wasn’t so sure yet if they had been the truth.

“It looks to me like both of you are slaves, slaves to competition, to the temporal achievements that come with having been the best at something your whole high school and college life. And the moment you fuck up and lose all that suddenly it’s the end of the world. It seems to me Hange has been raised that way by her parents… Let’s go back to you though. How was your relationship with your parents?”

“They’re good people, much more relaxed than Hange’s parents. Did I ever feel any particular closeness with them? No. They never tried to go beyond their roles either.”

“And did they get you into jumping?”

“No. I decided it on my own and they didn’t stop me but they didn’t necessarily encourage it either.”

“Then what made you start jumping? A natural inclination maybe?”

“I started jumping back in high school.”

Shela paused for a second as if she had waited for him to say more. Levi though was in no mood to scramble for information in his mind about his past. The questions served to create some sort of rhythm which had made it easier to organize his thoughts.

“I knew that much, I’ve been following you since you started making waves in the athletics scene. But why did you start jumping?” Shela eventually asked.

“I was recruited. I did well in PE back in high school when we first did jumping and I was invited to try out for the team,” He answered

“And you faced some spectacular improvements the first few months, enough to bump you up to first string by the autumn competitions in high school. A natural inclination?” Shela prodded as if she caught on to what worked best for Levi.

“I practiced a lot. I liked the sport.”

“And why did you like it?”

“Because…” Levi paused for a second as he started to feel so vividly then, the dropping of his stomach, the excitement at the suspension of his body in the air. “I had dreams. I dreamt I could fly and when I jumped, there was this sense of nostalgia… I couldn’t really explain it then but you know I’ve been writing lately right?”

“Are you saying the jumping… It’s like it’s helping you remember things?”

“Is ‘remember’ the right word? I mean I’m inspired to write stories. I get these dreams and they’re very vivid. Like I could have sworn they were happening but it’s impossible right? For them to have at least been happening here… in this world, or even this lifetime?

“And when you got injured, when it felt like you lost everything the first thing you felt was regret?” Shela pressed on. 

Levi shook his head as he thought back to the flash of pain that came with slamming his knee straight onto the metal pole. There was more to it before that, he had always been calm and collected yet why had he seemed so eager? So drawn then to Hange “No… It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how I felt. It was a lot of things at once. But, you know, I still wish I didn’t happen. Before the injury, when I met Hange. I was drawn to her. I wanted to get to know her, I wanted to impress her. And there was this feeling, this constant frustration at having to go through so much just to get to know her. And if I didn’t get injured, maybe things could have been easier?”

“You’re living with Hange now right? It looks like she does care about you. Then why are you still frustrated. Why do you still sound so regretful?”

“Because she just ruined her life, just like I did to mine. And she didn’t have to… And I can’t help but think… Was it my fault? If I didn’t push myself, she wouldn’t have lost her thesis topic, she wouldn’t have started anew. Did I force her to take me up as her thesis topic?”

“But, let’s think past that. Do you think you’ll be able to resolve these feelings once everything is okay on Hange’s side?”

“I don’t know…”

“Try to think Levi, if Hange were okay, would you be okay already?”

 _Would he?_ “I don’t know, it’s too early to tell.”

“If you can’t answer that Levi, I’ll have to assume that your investment in Hange’s emotions, your conflicted feelings are the side effects of something else inside you. Are you regretting something else? Are you frustrated?”

“I’m regretting things now. I’m frustrated… But… Hange was okay before this but I was still regretful, I was still frustrated so maybe.. Maybe you’re right. Maybe my worrying for Hange is a side effect but a side effect to what?”

Shela narrowed her eyes at him. “Think back Levi… Why were you frustrated?”

“I wanted to talk to her, I wanted to get to know her. I wanted to get her attention.”

“And you did, you got her attention. Now what?”

“That wasn’t it…”

“So there is something that runs deeper then?”

“When I started talking to Hange then, there was something inside me, telling me they didn’t want a repeat again of what happened before. Maybe that frustration, that drive to jump for her, to get to know her, to make her happy, what if it was fueled by regret?”

“Can you further explain those feelings?”

“Hange makes me feel regret, she makes me feel frustrated. She makes me imagine things about another life with her. They’re vivid memories, strong enough for me to want to write. I want to make sense of this too. And I feel like writing about it helps.”

Shela put down her clipboard and smiled. The smile was simple yet it told of victories, of revelations, of breakthroughs yet they were developments that Levi couldn’t fathom yet with just a vague smile’s worth of a hint. “Ideally, humans are rational and predictable beings. Many fields of study like to run under the assumption. But if people were that predictable, psychologists wouldn’t be writing hundred page case studies over one phenomenon. The thing is, sometimes people are pushed to being a little too out of character, sometimes people do the most unpredictable things with the right prodding. Sometimes, people can be moved to tears or even moved to the anger by the most trivial things.”

“Trivial things?” Was the regret and the frustration he felt towards Hange, towards everything that has been happening such a small thing?”

“No, not trivial. Trivial wasn’t the right word. Things you wouldn’t expect to ring so deeply for the majority…For example, you met Hange just a little more than a month ago right? You told me that a few times. Yet you so willingly and so quickly agreed to be a test subject. And now you’re living with her. It’s unbelievable really. And if I asked you how you felt about her? What made it easy to just get to know her so easily?”

The exhaustion after that and the tears that crept up could have been explained by the incessant proddings and presses that came at the right times but Levi did not want to dismiss anything as unexplainable yet. “At first, Hange was annoying, intimidating and entitled,” Levi managed to salvage then from his already exhausted mind. “But If she weren’t Hange, I would have retreated back to my own shell, I wouldn’t have been motivated at all to waste my time with such research.”

“Can you explain to me how you suddenly got so invested in one student after having isolated yourself for years since you entered college?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Yet you did. It’s a hyperfixation and an obsession. And personally, I think as long as it’s something you can manage, something you can build on to work towards being a better person, I see nothing wrong with being affected by such specific things.” Shela said. “In fact, on my end, I have my own unexplained fixations. I’ve ended up crying countless times already just hearing stories about prostitutes, about children and parents separated at birth. To be honest, I’ve never raised a child before. I've never experienced prostituion first hand but I can’t even believe just reading stories move me so quickly to tears more than others… I’m guessing you’ve felt the same things with Hange? A strange overfixation?" 

Levi could only nod in return, he had been too busy making sense of all of it in his head to verbalize anything. He feared any words that came out of his mouth would only interfere with his own thought process.

“I probably sound crazy now for even suggesting this but remember what I told you about past lives? Even as a psychologist, I don’t like reducing people’s emotions, these impulses to craziness or to some chemical imbalance in the brain. It just doesn’t sit well with me that humans that are still so complex and so unfathomable to the even the most intelligent researchers are so easily reduced to a bunch of scientific laws and biological functionings. Emotions, reactions are too vivid, have way too powerful of a control over our actions to have been just a nick in our system. Emotions, unexplained fears, unexplained nervousness, preferences and fondness for things, there must be some more powerful catalyst controlling all these. Those short yet strong bouts of emotion, of irrationality have to come from somewhere right?” Shela continued. “I believe there’s a reason why preferences exist, why we’re drawn to certain people, why others so quickly rub us the wrong way. Sure, some of our past experiences growing up could have shaped us a certain way but have you ever thought about things which can’t be explained before that?”

“What if that’s just how humans are.”

“No. I believe there might exist an explanation for this. Humans have only been getting more and more complex over the years. We’ve all evolved from cave men right? Yet now we’ve developed into people intelligent enough to build highly complex societal structures and infrastructure to achieve this high of a standard of living. I can’t help but imagine, what if knowledge and emotions transfer? What if we all have past lives and memories from then?”

“A past life?” Levi asked. He had entertained it before. He had brought it up as an idea then to Hange yet it had been so pathetically shot down. He had clocked it all to dreams that he could just entertain, write out. But he knew at the back of the mind that there were still lots more to figure out.

“What if we all had lives in the past? And what if we’re all just products of unfulfilled dreams, regrets and frustrations of the people who came before us?”

Shela spoke with speculations and questions. Yet she spoke with a confidence and an excitement that made her theories all the more worth the time to engage and entertain.

As if she had figured it all out already.

* * *

_Do you believe in reincarnation?_

He had asked Hange that question before, only to get the answer of a scientist and a researcher in return. Hange had done her part to shoot down his own theories before he had made sense of it himself. Yet Shela had done her part as well to reignite it. As he hobbled across the hospital hallways, past the offices of the doctors, he did realize he had run into a few people along the hospital walls who were part of his dreams, his stories.

And if Shela’s theory had been correct, they were part of his past life.

 _But don’t ask anyone if they believe in reincarnation._ Levi reminded himself. He didn’t want a reply similar to Hange’s at all.

His first stop was Erwin’s office, it was a ten minute long detour from the main entrance of the hospital and he risked the possibility that Erwin wouldn’t have been there at ten on a Friday morning.

 _If Erwin isn’t there, it isn’t worth asking and I’ll just keep writing._ Levi told himself as he prepared his own ultimatum.

It was as if the world had started to feel a little merciful. They may have destroyed his whole athletic career but they had still been merciful enough to add a positive glimmer to his life in the form of a few minor conveniences. And pathetically, he was grateful for that.

Erwin had opened the door of his office before Levi even poised his hand up to knock.

“Ah Levi. What brings you here? I recall telling you to get some rest this week. Is your knee feeling any better?” A greeting which lacked pleasantries, just like Erwin to have gone straight to business.

At the mention of his knee, Levi only became a little more aware that he hesitated to even put a sliver of weight on his knee, piling the responsibility of passing judgement and making the decision to his future self or to whoever would take the initiative to give advice on it.

“The pain has subsided since they drained it. I’m feeling good enough at least to attend the therapy sessions with Shela.” Levi said.

Erwin nodded in understanding. “Give your knee a week’s rest and we can try some light physical therapy again. I’ll make sure to coordinate with the therapist and I’ll message you about your schedule.”

The conversation had been taken elsewhere before Levi could bring up his own curiosities or concerns. Erwin had this no nonsense look about him and he navigated the hospital hallways with purpose. Levi had to note though that at the same time, Erwin was keeping a pace slow and steady enough for Levi to follow. Levi at least saw approachability and hospitality there.

“Are you busy now?” Levi asked.

“I’m doing rounds now.” Erwin answered, his expression unreadable. “If you have questions though, you can ask, I’m not at all in any hurry now.”

“What made you take up medicine?” Levi started. He found himself looking back to Hange’s own descriptions of Erwin before. Erwin liked to take calculated risks and gambles. He liked researching and investigating for some sort of truth. He found himself looking back at his own descriptions too, the long narratives in his own document from his meeting Erwin during that one expedition to his death at Shiganshina.

 _Just like in my stories, you sacrificed your life for whatever was in that basement._ Levi echoed loudly in his head as he followed next to him.

Erwin hummed in thought. “Investigating things, doing experiments has always made me excited so I’ve always known I wanted to go into research. Why do you ask?”

“I’m curious,” Levi said. “Also, why orthopedics of all fields?”

“It’s unpredictable. Every case is different, every recovery will go through its own bumps. I told you before, right Levi? There’s no clear cut way to go about any case. There are just case studies saying these worked for a few patients, this didn’t work for anyone. These are all gambles and strategies.”

“And you like the unpredictability.”

“I’ve always liked it.”

“And you like the research? This search for the truth?”

Erwin nodded. “There are still a lot of stuff we don’t know about medicine. The clear cut methods to heal the quickest and most efficiently from certain injuries for example. Yet the only way to find out the best clear cut ways is to keep on researching and treating people, experimenting and studying these results.

“Yet, you’re never sure if it would work…”

“Administering treatments especially for rare cases has always been a gamble since we never have enough reference to make informed decisions. But what if it does work? A lot of what we do as doctors anyway is to take calculated risks based on references from past cases and evidence and to continue taking them until we know the utmost truth, the most clear predictions for each case. But it takes time, knee and bone injuries and the recoveries that follow are still very complex. You could say to a degree, medicine is glorified gambling maybe? All we do as doctors is give our own opinions after all.”

In the battlefield, Erwin had always been a gambler, and he had never been too afraid too. Levi caught a hint of a glimmer in his eyes when he had mentioned the truth. He caught the way his tone wavered a bit as he mentioned something about a gamble and a hint of a smile on his lips.

“Hange said you were well known in your field, you published a lot of journals.”

“You can’t be afraid to take risks, to try new things if you want to know the truth.”

Levi didn’t think much of where they were going, having been a little too focused on the conversation a while ago, found himself lost, flitting between the commander and the doctor in front of him and lost in the wonder of realizing that he didn’t have to think too much of it. The thirst for the truth, the nonchalance towards gambles had been consistent with both.

_When did you start feeling like you wanted to know the truth? That knowing the truth is worth all the risks that come with it?_

Levi soon realized though, did he need to ask? Would Erwin have known how to answer that? Shela had called them unexplainable for a reason.

Erwin’s answers to those questions though had been enough, whether Erwin remembered it or not. The stories could have been some hint to a past life and they only supported the theories that were already brewing in Levi's head then.

Levi soon realized, he was starting to have a little more confidence in that one reincarnation theory.

* * *

“Levi! Nice to see you here. Has the pain in your knee subsided at least?” Petra asked, standing up a little straighter as she noticed him enter the physical therapy room.

It was less crowded than usual and consequently, Levi was quick to notice Erwin’s first destination. He went ahead to the young girl who was sitting on a bench doing light stretches with her back, being guided through the motions by Petra of all people.

“I don’t feel it much anymore.” Levi kept his answers brief, not wanting to take too much attention from Petra who had been focused on the young girl for a while.

“This is Isabel Magnolia.” It was Erwin who introduced her. “She’s an athlete like you.”

If Isabel had looked up at him before the introductions, Levi realized he wouldn’t have needed the name. Isabel had opened up more memories and more avenues in his mind that he didn’t even know existed until that moment.

“You can call me Levi.” Levi sat next to her on the bench and let out his hand in greeting. He was careful that time, not to make apparent any signs that he had quickly recognized her.

Petra let go of Isabel’s shoulders and stepped back. “He’s a jumper,” she added.

Isabel’s eyes widened in what looked to be curiosity. “Call me Isabel.” She looked down at his knee and back up at him. “You’re taking physical therapy too.”

“I’m taking a break. Had a pretty bad first reaction to physical therapy.”

Isabel’s face crumpled into a frown. “That must have hurt. I hope you're able to get back to it soon.”

Erwin spoke up from next to Levi. “I looked at your latest x-ray results. I’m expecting after one more month of physical therapy and you should be able to carry light loads, maybe help around the house again.”

“What surgery did you have?”

“Spine surgery. She had scoliosis, put a damper on her plans for gymnastics. She went straight for surgery then light physical therapy right after. In her case, it at least expedited the process of recovery,” Erwin said.

“You’re a gymnast?” Levi asked. It had been a little too easy imagining Isabel pulling off those stunts he had only ever seen in Olympic games.

Isabel gave a light nod. “Until the scoliosis happened.”

“Do you like it?” Levi asked.

“Gymnastics you mean?”

“Flying through the air? The twisting? The jumping?” Levi knew those moves had names but he never really did bother to research them.

Isabel grinned at him. “Don’t go into too much detail, you’ll make me miss it more.”

Petra clapped her hands, getting both of their attentions. “No more time for talking, you want to get back into shape soon right?” Petra’s attention was on Isabel already.

Soon enough, Levi was forgotten. Erwin had moved on to another patient in the room and Levi instead opted to settle on the benches outside the physical therapy room.

“Hey, you’re here for physical therapy too?” The voice had been all too familiar, a quick memory away from Isabel’s.

 _Farlan?_ Levi kept his mouth shut about the name. “You’re here for Isabel?”

“She’s a family friend. I take her here sometimes," Farlan said as he settled on the bench next to Levi.

“You must be close family friends then.”

“Her family has lived close to mine since before I can remember. She’s like a little sister to me.”

“She was a good gymnast huh?”

“She could have even made the Olympics maybe. If this bout of scoliosis didn’t happen.” Farland put a hand to the back of his head and grinned sheepishly. “Apologies, I forgot to introduce myself. Farland Church.”

Levi was quick to introduce himself, not bothering to give much but a name. “You think she’ll still make the Olympics?”

Farlan shook his head. “Honestly, at this point, we’re just getting her back to a state where she’d grow up a healthy adult. She lost a lot but she’s been strong about it.”

“Maybe, I have some things I need to learn from both of you then.” Levi felt the blood rush to his face as he said that. _What the fuck was that?_

Farlan though didn't blink twice at that odd statement. “I heard from some of the nurses here while I was watching you inside. Apparently, you were a pretty high profile athlete too.”

“I guess I was.”

“Any chances for you going back?”

“Not at all. I’ll be graduating from college soon, so there’s really nothing much left but a professional career anyway.”

“The nurses were saying you were good. It’s a shame things like this had to happen.”

“You could say the same for Isabel.”

“For the few months after she had to quit, she was inconsolable. But with time, she found other things to occupy her time with. Isabel has been drawing a lot since she quit gymnastics. She started focusing more on school. It helped at least. ”

“Isabel though always had an inclination towards gymnastics right?”

“Any sport really. I honestly think she could have done jumping too.”

“What about you?”

“I did sports as a kid and back in high school, but I ended up just focusing on my studies in college.”

“You never felt drawn to sports like gymnastics or jumping?”

“I have… I still go to the gym and exercise but I really prefer challenging my mind. It had always been Isabel who had more physical energy she needed to release.”

“That’s interesting…” Really, Levi was interested,

Farlan had always been the one planning, the one counting money and making the logistics of their own crime syndicate work. At that moment, Levi couldn’t help but think, if they hadn’t been stuck in the underground then, having to work as criminals to make ends meet, would Farlan have pursued more mind crunching endeavors.

“Ah, Isabel, you’re done pretty early,” Farlan commented.

Levi only realized then that a few minutes ago, he had trailed off. The conversation had quickly died out as Levi fell back to his own musings on Farlan and Isabel.

“Yeah! I got tired pretty fast but they said one more month and I can help around the shop again.”

As if Levi hadn’t been there, the two had fallen into their own one-on-one conversation, their surroundings completely forgotten, and maybe he had been part of their surroundings. And somehow, just watching them make their way back out of the hallway left him a little heavy.

Surprisingly Farlan did turn back. “I’ll see you around then?”

“Ahh, Levi! You’re still here.” Isabel’s wide-eyed gaze quickly shifted to a cat like grin when she noticed Levi. “Petra told me you were a great jumper. She even showed me some videos. I'm wishing you all the best for your recovery."

Levi returned the grin. “I wish you two the best too.” He knew he wouldn’t have at all exchanged such phatic expressions if he didn’t mean it.

And as he watched the two walk away, he did open the application on his phone and write those two names down at the top of the first page, the details to be filled out a little later on his laptop.

 _Even if nobody remembers, even if they’re fictional. So be it. I’ll continue to write._ Levi had to attest, the feelings were real.

“Levi? Is that boy a friend of yours?”

Levi quickly looked up to see a familiar nurse staring curiously down at him. “No, this is actually my first time talking to him.”

The nurse gave him a surprised look “He doesn’t really talk much. I don’t think he’s ever struck up a conversation with anyone here the past few months he’s been accompanying Isabel,” She said. “Yet surprisingly, he was pretty friendly with you. Maybe you have a way with opening up to people.”

Levi had quickly debunked that in his head. In fact, an erroneous comment like that had left him almost speechless, vacillating between agreeing for the sake of politeness and disagreeing just to be honest. He was sure he didn’t have a way with people at all.

Yet somehow, he did have a way to talk to Farlan.

“People can be unpredictable,” Levi answered, echoing Shela’s words of a while ago. That brief exchange with the nurse assured Levi, bolstered his confidence in the theories he chose to make his own.

Maybe there was some truth at least to Shela’s words. Maybe there was some basis to the ideas he held on to for comfort.

* * *

“I’m home.”

“Ah, Levi welcome back.:”

Their roles were reversed. Levi wouldn’t have expected it weeks back. In fact, he couldn’t even believe that weeks back, he had been the one on the receiving end of the 'I’m home' so many times before. Those times, he had always been excited to see her.

Then and there, as he listened to the lifeless drawl of the welcome back, Levi could only take a slow deep breath and walk forward into the kitchen and living room only to see Hange lazily sprawled on the sofa bed.

 _Is this how you felt when I was just lying in bed all day?_ Levi asked Hange silently.

Of course she didn’t hear it, she didn’t even make an effort to look back at him, her eyes glued to her phone in front of her.

 _Did I look like that too?_ Levi felt fear and concern well up inside him. He felt almost obligated to stage some sort of intervention yet just the idea of nagging at her similarly to how she had done to him only a few weeks back left a sour taste in his mouth.

“I bumped into Erwin at the hospital today. He asked about you.” He decided to start off with a white lie.

“That’s weird, I just messaged him last night saying I’ll send over a draft by the end of the week.”

“About how you are, not about your draft.” Levi continued. Erwin did not at all ask about Hange during their small conversation. The last thing Levi wanted to do though was admit to that lie.

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, keep it that way.”

“But you’re not fine. Wouldn’t you want to tell your thesis advisor that?”

“What do you know about me not being fine?” Hange’s tone was more abrasive than usual and since he had called out to her, she hadn’t sat up from the bed, let alone made eye contact with him at all.

Levi only had to give the room a onceover to answer that question for himself. Half filled boxes were strewn everywhere, some of the tables had already cleaned out, some shelves were emptied of books and the books were stacked up close to some boxes.

“How long do you have to pack before you move out?”

“A week but I can finish much faster.”

“Any leads on where you can stay?”

“I have enough savings from stipends, I’ll rent a smaller place for a few months, take a few odd jobs teaching online. If I hold off on luxuries, I’ll last until graduation then I’ll find a job.”

“What about medical school?”

“Ha. After that disaster of a thesis presentation?” Hange swung her legs to the side of the sofa and dropped her feet on the floor.. “I got an F in one of the most important papers of my life. I don’t think that will be happening soon.”

“But it’s just one F.”

“One F is enough to lose any chances of a scholarship. Besides, my parents said so themselves, they’re not paying for medical school anymore.”

“Hange. Talk to your parents. If you want I can---”

“Come with me? Helped fix it up. No thank you.”

“This is your future.” Levi argued.

“No. It isn’t. It doesn’t have to be. I decide how to live my life, _at my own terms_.”

“We could at least talk to your parents to pay for medical school, or just to support you…”

“You don’t get it Levi. _**I** _refused it. I don’t want to be in debt to them. I don’t want them controlling my life any longer.”

“What now?”

Hange walked towards one of the boxes and pulled it roughly towards one of her bookshelves. “I thought about this already. Thanks for pointing this out then back in the hospital when you first got injured and I’m sorry for having taken to long to realize it, but you’re right."

"Right about what?" 

These are my parents plans, not mine. They were so stiff. All the rules were so damn strict. Levi, at this rate I don’t even know what I want to do. All I know now is just studying an injury I caused, studying the career ending injury of an athlete that I admired so much for so long just fucked me up. And the moment I break, they were more than ready to tell me off, they threatened to cut all support… “ Hange walked up to the box and threw a pile of books in. “Failure isn’t allowed. Deciding based on what makes me happy wasn’t allowed. It’s like having preferences, emotions and dreams and desires were wrong. Did they see me as a pet? A robot I lived this fucked up existence just asking what people wanted and acting based on that. I don’t even know what kind of person I’m supposed to be.”

Levi flinched as Hange threw another pile of books so carelessly into the box. He resisted the urge to go to the box and organize it himself. The way Hange had narrowed her eyes on him as she met his gaze was terrifying deterrent already.

“You’re Hange Zoe,” Levi said.

“But who _is_ Hange Zoe?”

“Commander Hange Zoe, she makes well thought out decisions on a fly and she sticks to them. She rambles on endlessly about titans, about theories. She holds on to her well thought out beliefs even when the whole word is against her. ”

“You know Levi, that file you shared… I’ve been reading through it actually. You wrote a lot about Hange Zoe. Were you really thinking about me when you wrote it?”

“I was.”

“But we only met just a few months ago. How could you make so many assumptions about me now?”

“Maybe because I’m perceptive,” Levi said. “Why? Would you say they’re accurate?”

Hange stopped emptying the shelves for a moment and looked back at him.“ I wouldn’t know yet. I’ve only just started figuring out for myself what I really want to do. But you know, somehow I can’t help but really see myself in Commander Hange Zoe.”

“I wrote her like that because that’s how Hange Zoe really is.”

“Then I’ll work harder to be like her.”

“You don’t have to. The squad leader and the commander are already in you, you just have to uncover for yourself those parts.”

Hange raised one eyebrow at him. “Those are some bold words from you.”

“You will uncover those parts,” Levi asserted. I don’t think that will be too hard either. Hange has always loved research, she loved to search for the truth. That’s why Erwin chose her to be the 14th commander of the survey corps.”

Hange placed the two books on the pile in the box a little more gently, an improvement at least from her harsh movements of a while ago. “Then keep writing Levi. I’ll read as I go. And maybe along the way, I’ll find that ‘true Hange Zoe’.”

Levi smiled. “I’ll be happy to help. There are a lot of things I still want to write.”

Hange walked back to the sofa, settled down on it and crossed her legs, looking expectantly at Levi. “Tell me about it. I’m all ears.”

“I honestly don’t know much yet about what became of Captain Levi and Commander Hange Zoe after they exterminated the titans outside the walls.”

“You need inspiration? Anyone else you might wanna meet?”

Levi sat down next to her and rested his chin on his hand. “I have someone in mind I’ve been meaning to meet for a while but I’m going to need your diplomacy skills to strike up a good conversation with her”

“Go on....”

Levi unlocked his phone and opened up a browser tab, ready to do the research himself “Do you know if Mikasa Ackerman has any competitions coming up soon?”

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is very much appreciated!


End file.
